


The Avant-Garde Tour

by Lis (domesticharry)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Hate to Love, M/M, because harry is a mick jagger doppleganger fuck who confuses everyone with his organic tea ass, liam on the drums, louis is a perfectionist and he tries his best but he hates harry, niall on the bass, there will be all the rimming and groovy mixtapes, we love that bitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-04-20 20:19:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14268759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticharry/pseuds/Lis
Summary: Cherry Bomb Productions proudly presents a second album release from the pop-rock band, Wolves. What will it take for competitive lead vocalist, Louis Tomlinson, to not only work with the sensational guitarist, Harry Styles, but to also convince him to leave his barber shop life behind for a year on the road? A story where words fail more times than not and mixtapes reveal more than they should.Or, the one where Harry’s “vintage connoisseur” personality is everything that Louis hates, but Louis is bright enough to know that he needs Harry’s talent.





	1. The Barber and the Bees

**Author's Note:**

> Kelli (jimmytfallon), thank you for being the best beta a girl could ask for. This hot mess is for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mixtape for chapter one: Baba O'Riley by The Who, Hush by Deep Purple, Psycho Killer by Talking Heads, Aquarius by The 5th Dimension, Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Summer in the City by The Lovin' Spoonful, and I wanna Be Sedated by Ramones

_To give yourself over to another body_

_That’s all you want really_

_To be out of your own and consumed by another_

_To swim inside the skin of your lover_

_Not have to breathe_

_Not have to think_

_But you can’t live on love_

_And salt water’s no drink_

 

Florence Welch

 

✵

 

**The Barber and the Bees**

 

Hidden underneath decadent constellations of cigarette smoke, perfectly, yet reluctantly submerged within London’s crucible of self-righteousness and loneliness, was a man of twenty-eight. His fingers fidgeted by his side, nonsensically teetering over mother nature’s invisible breath while he watched crossing lights turn green. Traffic was the coursing blood inside the heart of West End, steadily pumping to the rhythm of car horns and pedestrians’ footsteps. Double decker buses and egg-shaped vehicles wailed as they impatiently sat bumper-to-bumper. Vulgarly incoherent shouts from cracked-open windows made the corner of his mouth twitch upwards. The smoothed pavement that surrounded him, once a compilation of beggars’ soot and grandiose beliefs of aestheticism, was now congested by gawking tourists and Londoners that walked with an air of self-inducted importance. Louis Tomlinson fell somewhere between the two; somewhere in no man’s land with the others that call themselves creators.

A persistent vibration thrummed against his thigh and with a stifled grunt, Louis pulled out his mobile. Illuminating the screen was a photo of a woman with golden skin and shoulder length mocha hair. She wore three things: a bleary smile, a charcoal beret that had gone dangerously askew, and the contents of a spilled strawberry margarita. The contact name _Manager_ appeared over an empty cocktail glass that she had lifted in the air with a nonplussed shrug. Quickly glimpsing at the time, he winced. It was two minutes past noon. Taking a needed pull from his cigarette, Louis unlocked his phone and tried to cheerfully chirp, “Hi, Jules, everything alright?”       

“Darling,” Jules longingly exhaled as if she had been holding it in all day. “Darling, darling, my dearest darling dot. When will you be joining me?” There was a pointed pause before she drawled on, “I can practically _feel_ myself wasting away in your absence.”

Louis barely managed to conceal a snort. He imagined her petite frame dramatically draped along the ruby chaise lounge that was perched in the center of her spotless office, a shimmery peach robe layering over one of her multiple pearly suits. Jules’ assistant, Martin (a recent uni graduate actually named Jerome, but she had insisted on calling him Martin because she went through an unfortunate _Parent Trap_ phase for two months), was likely by her side holding a bowl of seedless red grapes.     

“You’re thirty,” Louis reminded, eliciting a pained groan from the other end of the receiver. “You can’t already be wasting away.”

“Louis, honey, listen to me, I— _God_ , I can hardly bring myself to say it. It’s too dreadful.”

He stubbed out his cigarette with the toe of his dress shoe, vaguely aware that a middle-aged man was snapping away photographs of his each and every movement. Louis lifted his shoulders and exasperated, “Whatever it is, I’m sure—”

There was a rustle of movement as if she had quickly jerked upright. Louis could barely make out Martin mumbling something about an emergency stash of Toblerone chocolate. “No, that’s quite alright, Martin,” Jules stuffily said with an accent posher than he thought imaginable. She deeply inhaled, “Alright, I’ll tell you. This might come as a shock.”

“I’ll try to brace myself,” he deadpanned as he crossed the street, eyes raking up a lean skyscraper of glass-boxed-offices.

“I found a grey hair.”

Louis paused for a flicker of a second.

“ _That’s_ what you’re making a big deal about?” Louis rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to shield his laughter. Jules exasperatedly whimpered in response. “Fucks sake,” he wiped a hand over his face, “Babes, your hair was dyed grey up until...what was it? One week ago? Two at most?” Appreciatively, Louis nodded towards the familiar doorman. The man’s expression was professionally molded to a polite smile when he swiftly opened the gold-trimmed door to the Cherry Bomb Productions’ clientele entrance. As Louis walked inside, he reassured his manager, “I’m sure you just found a piece of hair your stylist missed.”

“Perhaps,” she contemplated for one moment before exuberantly saying, “Anywho, have you heard about the women who eat their baby’s placentas for vitamins?” Jules seriously continued, “That could be a spiritual way for me to cleanse out toxins, you know. I’ve read you get this sort of ravishing glow and your skin looks twenty years younger. Yes, that’s exactly what I need.”

“Skin like a ten-year-old is what you need?” Louis sharply cackled before realizing what exactly she had said. He startled to a stop in the pale lobby, soles of his shoes squeaking against the white tile flooring. “Wait. You want to eat a— _no_. No, fucking—shit, Jules. Absolutely not. No,” Louis rushed out, head shaking side to side. “First of all, you’re not even pregnant. So, there’s no placenta. Secondly,” He trailed off, lips distastefully puckering, “Just...for the love of God, do not do that.”

“But there’s a website where—”

“I’m about to get in the elevator,” Louis hurriedly cut her off. “Don’t order any organs in the next thirty seconds, okay?”

“Oh! You’re here?” She satedly sighed, placenta apparently forgotten, “Good, good, loads to discuss. Loads to plan. Just loads to do before next Tuesday.”

“Right.” He jammed his thumb against the elevator call button. “M’hanging up now.”

“Au revoir, mon chérie!”

Louis ended the call and disbelievingly shook his head. The closed elevator door reflected his appearance. He pocketed the mobile and straightened his suit jacket, palms flat while he trailed over the smooth black material. The right side of his mouth tipped downwards at the sight of a few fly-away hairs from the wind. Meticulously, he put them back in proper order and skimmed a fingernail along his precise left part. Louis leaned in closer and carefully used the pad of his thumb to clean up the liner rimming his eyes. Surrounded by smokey onyx pigment, the aegean flecks of his irises were impeccably bright.      

Getting off on the sixteenth floor, Louis strode past a hallway of frames, one of which cased a Dazed magazine cover with his face moodily printed on it. Eloa, the stunning toffee-toned transfer from Cherry Bomb’s Brazilian office, warmly welcomed him at reception.

“Mr. Tomlinson,” she politely nodded, her plum coated lips curling into a smile in synchronization with her cheeks blooming to a pink hue. Eloa’s hands gracefully danced over the keyboard in front of her, eyes never leaving his. “As always, great to see you, sir. Madame will meet you shortly.”

Louis’ eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Madame?”

Eloa conspiringly leaned forwards and murmured under her breath, “She’s started watching old French  films again.”

“Jules _does_ know that she doesn’t actually understand French, yeah?”

“Honestly,” Eloa shrugged, thick tresses of raven hair slipping over her shoulder, “no idea. She’s started to say random sentences and knows none of us understand French, so we can’t even call her out on the bluff.” She rested her chin on her palm and thoughtfully said, “Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure she was talking about soup in our team meeting the other day.”

Louis chuckled and shook his head. “Christ.”

“My feelings exactly, Sir,” Eloa gravely agreed.

The office landline began to ring and Louis stepped away from the circular desk with a semi-salute, aware that her gaze followed him. Even before the band’s success, it wasn’t unusual for people to just sit and _watch_ him. Internet gossip articles called it his “seductive nature” and an “irrepassable magnetism” that he carried. Louis’ younger sister, Charlotte, on the other hand, scoffed at those descriptions and plainly dubbed him a “flirtatious fucker”. Privately grinning at the memory of her deadpan expression on FaceTime, he meandered towards the wall of windows, taking in the buzzing cityscape while he waited.     

A handful of minutes later, cherry-wood doors at the end of the hall swung open. Martin gestured a sweeping right hand towards the inside of Jules’ office. “Madame is ready for you, Mr. Tomlinson.”

Louis smirked, clasped his hands behind his back, and strode towards the doorway. The light chafing of his trousers filled the otherwise noiseless waiting area. He paused by the assistant’s side to mutter under his breath, “Thank you, Jerome.”

The younger man flushed underneath the attention and ducked his head down in response.

“My dear treacle-tart, please tell me that’s you.”

“You already know it is,” he chuckled and stepped inside the surprisingly dark office, door gently closing behind him.  

Jules was exactly how Louis imagined, perfectly sprawled over the lush couch, except instead of her usual white suit, she wore a black dress that dangerously teetered close to being a gown fit for the funeral of the queen. There was a damp flannel over her eyes and limply gripped in her hand was a cylinder glass filled to the brim with a Bloody Mary cocktail. The blinds were drawn over the windows and the overhead lights were dimmed to a foreboding hue. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows when he realized “Without You” from _Rent_ was drearily playing from the speakers of her desktop. Louis’ fingers subconsciously felt for the carton of cigarettes inside of his left breast pocket.

Louis carefully stepped closer. “Uh,” he awkwardly drawled out. “You alright there?”

“I will never be alright again.”

“Is this about the grey hair?” He sat down in a leather chair across from the chaise, elbows rested on the caps of his knees. “Cos if it is,” Louis eyed the pitcher of alcohol on the grey coffee table, “this is a bit dramatic. Even for you.”

Jules choked on a dry sob, the back of her free hand flinging to rest on her forehead.

“How could you possibly remind me of that at a time like this?” she accused, pulling the compress from her face so she could properly glare at him.

“At a time like what, exactly?” Louis quirked a brow. He cocked his head to the side. “You’re gonna have to give me a bit more than whatever... _this_ is.”

“Right, well,” she sniffled, slowly sitting upwards. Taking a long sip from her drink, Jules cleared her throat and intentionally paused to blink twice before saying, “I received the most upsetting call when we got off the phone earlier.”

“That was only five minutes ago.”

“Your point?”

He eyed the pitcher. “Have you been drinking this morning?”

“Yes,” she nodded and then amended, “well, only since the call, of course.”

“You made a pitcher of Bloody Marys...five minutes ago?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jules waved him off with a manicured hand, “Martin did that while I changed.”

“Do you keep that outfit here?”

“I do in the case I get,” she lingered on a pause and lowered her voice, “news.”

Louis brashly cackled, eyes blown wide. “You put that on every time you get bad news?!”

“Obviously,” Jules bluntly said as if Louis had stated that grass is green.

He slumped back in his chair and propped his head up with a hand, groaning when “Without You” restarted. “Can you at least turn the song off repeat? It’s too early for this.”

“Absolutely not!” she admonished, hand flattening over her heart. “It's crucial for the ambiance of what I am about to tell you, darling.”

After four years of Jules being his manager, Louis had learned to accept that he would never understand her.

“Alright,” Louis resigned. He laid his hands flat on his thighs. “What d’you have to tell me?”

Jules squared her shoulders, smoothed out her dress, and knit her fingers together. She looked down for a blip of a second and when her eyes flashed back to Louis, they were glassy. A single tear cradled the apple of her right cheek.  

“Zayn quit the band.”

Louis waited for a moment. His manager didn’t continue. He worriedly looked over the person across from him and straightened his posture. “Uh...I don’t how to break this to you, but that happened about a year ago.”

Her eyes rolled as slow as molasses, tears miraculously gone as she grated, “That’s not the news.”  

“Thank fuck.” Louis slouched back in the chair. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I thought you’d gone and lost it for a second there.”

“Al called me,” Jules said as if it explained anything at all. She flopped back down.

Louis frowned. “Remind me who Al is?”

“Zayn’s replacement for recording until we find someone permanent to tour.”

“Oh, right,” Louis drawled, vaguely remembering the name from an email.

She rolled her fingers in the air and said with an annoyed tinge in her voice, “Yes. Well, apparently, he lost a finger in some construction project—”

“He _what_?!” Louis shot out of his chair. He frantically asked, “Is he gonna be okay?” Louis cupped a hand over his mouth and muffled, “Christ, that’s horrible. We should send flowers.” He winced and dropped his hands. “Are flowers too simple for losing a finger?”

Jules abruptly stood and flailed her hands out by her side. “Your lead guitarist is missing a finger and you’re thinking about flowers?!”

“What else am I supposed to be thinking about?!” Louis sputtered out, eyes bulging.  

She clumsily rushed to step up on the coffee table, undoubtedly doing so just to be taller than him. Her heels noisily clacked against the fiberglass. Jules firmly put her hands on her hips when she was balanced, eyes flickering something fierce. “You start recording next week and we don’t have a guitarist!”

“A man just lost his finger! For someone so bloody sensitive, you’re being remarkably insensitive about this!”

Jules stomped her foot. “You’ve never even met him!”

“What’s that got to do with it?!”

She deeply inhaled before she imploringly said, “My darling duck, you cannot care about every lost finger you never knew.”

Louis gaped at her.

“We have to remain calm,” Jules decided once the air around them lessened in tension. She frowned, lowered her head to be at Louis’ eye-level, and cupped her hands over her heart. “Because if we do not remain calm, I will likely go into cardiac arrest and you will have no one to look after you.”

 _Rent_ continued to play in the background.

Louis’ shoulders wilted in resignation.

“C’mon,” Louis sighed and dolefully held out a hand for her to take. “Get down from there before you hurt yourself or spill Martin’s hard work all over the floor. The poor lad is already responding to a fake name for you.”

Jules took his hand, the edges of her mouth twitching into a grin. She stepped down and her robe pooled at their feet. Lifting a shoulder, she prattled, “I can’t help that I want my life to mirror art.”

Louis tilted his head to the side, smile lines dipping into his skin. “ _The_ _Parent Trap_ is art?”

“It’s like the French say, darling,” Jules gently cupped his cheek, “Être dans les choux.”

“Do you even know what you’re saying?” Louis disbelievingly asked.

“Of course I do.” Jules winked, her hand slipping away. She slowly walked towards her desk and finally turned off the depressing soundtrack music. “Now,” Jules sat down and leisurely leaned back with her eyes closed, “talk to me about the tracks. What’ve you got?”

The following two hours heavily consisted of discussing the second album’s arc, promotion rounds, and unbeknownst to him, Louis’ evident need for a haircut. Leaving the office significantly more drained than when he had entered, Louis strode to his matte-finished SUV, smirked for a few camera lenses along the way, and drove to the barbershop Jules’ recommended. She wrote down the address with an aura of importance at the end of their meeting, quietly speaking as if not to divulge a grand secret. _It’s the hottest place to be seen for a trim, darling. Everyone important knows about it, but it’s not for...how do I say? Common people? Yes, that’s right. I’ve even gone myself when my brother was in town. You need their business card to get in. Highly exclusive. I recommend them to all of my favorite people, but you can’t tell anyone else about it or else it wouldn’t be special._ Not wanting his manager go into a downward spiral for a second time that day, Louis assured Jules that he would send a picture of himself that night to prove he actually went to said shop for a haircut.  

After a significant amount of tight turns, the embedded navigation on the dashboard alerted Louis that he arrived at his destination. He nervously frowned and hesitated before turning the engine off. The street was empty of pedestrians. Parked in front of his truck were a few sedans and one motorcycle, but no owners were in sight. Louis looked at a barren storefront to his left, its curtained windows, and then back to the business card Jules had slipped to him. Finely printed in red on white cardstock were three letters and three letters only: RTT _._ Louis double-checked the address Jules has scrawled on a seperate piece of paper. It read 18 Ingestre Place, as did the building across from him. Almost stubbornly, Louis double-checked the paper because he had a hard time believing Jules would send him to an abandoned shop that looked like it was actively participating in an underground opiate ring.

“She has lost it after all,” Louis mumbled to himself.

Just as he moved to bring the engine back to life, the chipped grey door across the street was pushed open. A jovial, plump man was leaving with a satisfied look about him. He ran a hand over his cheeks in the same manner Louis did when he had freshly shaved. Lips pursed in an easy whistle, the man walked to the mouth of the street and left Louis’ view.   

_What’s the worst that could happen?_

Gathering his wits and belongings, Louis unlocked his door and climbed out of the driver’s seat. The soles of his shoes slightly dragged against the pavement as if they were trying to lead him back to the comfortable confines of the BMW. With the training that came from two years of being in the public’s eye, Louis plastered confidence over his posture and opened the shop’s door.

Unsurprisingly, the lobby was as drab as its exterior. It wasn’t necessarily dirty, but the peeling floral wallpaper and outdated floor boards were enough to keep Louis within a foot of the exit. In the center of the room was a couch. More specifically, a green and navy checkered couch with an oversized man relaxing on it. In his meaty hands was a magazine, but Louis was too on edge to pay close enough attention to see what he was reading. The man wore all black and had a severe buzzcut that reminded Louis of the bouncers that were usually stationed at his shows. Almost reluctantly, the man tore his gaze away from the page he was reading. He blatantly looked over Louis’ profile and drawled, “Can I help you?”

“Um.” Louis frowned, unsure if he should say anything at all or bolt back to his car. Opting for safety, he tilted his head to the side and fake-laughed. “Actually, I think I have the wrong address. Sorry, mate.”

When Louis swiftly turned on his heel, the man called after him, “What’s that you got there?”

Louis looked over his shoulder, eyebrows pinched in confusion until he realized the man was pointing towards the piece of cardstock. “Oh,” he lamely held it up for him to see, attempting to play it off, “it’s—well, I was _told_ —”

“Go down the hall. Stairs will be on your right,” he easily cut Louis off and resumed his position of reading.

Louis’ jaw went slack, his feet feeling heavier than cement. When the gatekeeper gave him a deliberate look that suggested he might kick Louis out if he stood there any longer, Louis stepped past the couch and started towards a hallway that he hadn’t even noticed. He glimpsed over his shoulder when he was at the foot of a narrow staircase. The other man was watching him from over the couch’s backing and that was the only encouragement Louis needed to start up the staircase. He paused about halfway, ears perking towards the low thrum of a bass that had begun to quietly pour into the corridor. At the top of the staircase was a white door. Unlike everything downstairs, it was freshly lacquered and the chrome doorknob was polished. Painted onto the door in candy-apple-red lettering was, _Ruby Tuesday’s Trims_. With a steadying inhale, Louis entered the barbershop for the first time.  

Stock-still in the doorway, Louis’ initial thought was that he had been swallowed into a portal and spat back out in a warped version of the present. The baseline of “Hush” by Deep Purple was steadily thumping and his pulse sped up with the track. Ruby Tuesday’s dome-shaped ceiling was entirely plated by mirrors, each slat reflecting fragments of walnut flooring and poster-clad walls. _Christ_ , Louis thought to himself as he continued to stare. _Those walls._

Hundreds of vintage prints blanketed the space to the point where no one could possibly know the color of the walls. Album covers of bands like Kansas, Cheap Trick, and Creedence Clearwater Revival were sidled next to iconic tour posters for Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin. Multiple faces made reappearances in the montage. Guitarists, mainly. Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, and Jimi Hendrix seemed to stand out at first, but there were too many to decipher if there was a favorite. There was one framed poster on the left wall between two barber stations. Proudly encased within the ornate frame was an original promotional poster of the Woodstock ‘69 lineup. Two autographs that Louis didn’t readily recognize were immortalized in the margins.

Eight equidistant barber stations lined the left and right wall. Each station was illuminated by old Hollywood vanity lighting and their corresponding shelves were the color of cornflower blue. A rosy hue fell upon leather chairs, three of which were inhabited by laxed customers. Three barbers shuffled across the floor; two men and one woman, each too transfixed in their work to readily notice Louis. He used their distraction to fully walk inside the shop and get a better look at the oddly stacked television sets along the far wall. There were at least fifteen of them, each varying in size, but all at least three decades old. Flickering on each screen was Pink Floyd’s visual album, _The Wall_. Louis’ gaze followed the screens to the right, nearly overlooking a man in the corner who looked more like an eccentric prop than a real human being.  

The man’s body was too long for the loveseat he used, his limbs taking over the lush maroon material as if it was merely an extension of him. His spindly legs crooked over the arm of the couch, feet bobbing in the perfumed air as “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads began to play. Leisurely pinched between the man’s ring-clad fingers was an incense stick. A thin veil of smoke cocooned him while he lazily drew lucid figure-eights in the air. The aquamarine chiffon blouse that limply laid over his frame danced with the sage incense in an almost hypnotic fashion. Hugging his chest was a crocheted vest; purple, pink, and yellow flowers were stitched in a nonsensical pattern. Velvet trousers that were the color of dusk clung to his thighs like constricting ivy. The fabric began to bell out just past the man’s kneecaps and peeking out from underneath its hem were a pair of faded suede boots. His unabashedly sprawled position practically dared Louis’ gaze to linger on the apparent curve that rested at the other man’s groin.

Louis had never seen someone appear more effortlessly erotic.

“Sorry, didn’t hear you come in. Loud music an’ all that. How can I help you today?”

At the sound of the barber’s voice, the man on the couch removed a wide brimmed hat that had been resting over his face and lethargically turned towards Louis. Green doe-eyes stared at him. His pouty pink lips curved upwards in the way Louis’ did when reporters openly flirted with him. It was assured, but not necessarily demeaning which only made it harder to look away.

“No worries, love,” Louis responded, words slower than normal. He turned towards the woman. “I wanted a trim. Nothing too, uh,” Louis trailed off to glimpse at the man on the couch before continuing, “drastic.”  

“Alright, I’m just finishing up here, but I’ll be able to help you out after,” she chirped, the sentence tumbling out twice the speed of Louis’. She nodded towards a line of cushioned chairs by the door, “Feel free to take a seat while you wait.”  

Louis’ mouth opened to thank her, but was cut off by a honey-slick voice that lowly rumbled the same way thunder did before a storm.“No need, Kelli. I’ll do it.”

Both of them turned towards the loveseat. He sat upwards in a feline movement that could have challenged the grace of a slinking panther. Smoke coiled around his lean body in a serpentine manner. The man put his black hat on, the ostentatious peacock feather that curled around it glimmered underneath overhead lights. He placed the incense stick into an amethyst stone that rested on a side table and stood upright. Chestnut curls dipped down to the center of his ribcage, few of which were braided to intertwine with beads and feathers of muted colors. Appearing from underneath the curtain of hair was a single dangling earring that resembled a silver medallion.

Inexplicably, yet undeniably, Louis saw every natural element unfurling within each step that the other man took.

The approach alone made Louis feel as if he was standing on the bank of an active volcano, invisible chains rooting him in place while molten lava crept towards him in blazing swells. Captivating, yet inherently dangerous. Louis saw filaments of his own childhood in the man’s eyes which made his right foot unnervingly shift backwards. They were the color of his mother’s garden. Rich and full of shamrocks that basked in the sunlight which poured through their dogwood’s foliage. His hips rocked from side to side, steadily ebbing and flowing like the Aegean Sea. The soles underneath the other man’s feet assuredly crossed the floor in the same way swooping winds purged over the Cliffs of Moher. Confident. Strong. _No, not strong,_ Louis berated himself at the mere idea of simplifying the stranger to something as generic as _strong_.

Louis was struck that this person was catastrophically larger than mother nature had meant to allow in a single entity.

He hated it.

No, he hated _him_.

Louis ached with a hate that churned from jealousy. The ugliest kind. Louis hated him because he was undoubtedly the kind of person who could draw attention without offering a single bead of sweat in return. It took a leisured position in gaudy clothing and six words for Louis to accidentally tremble in his presence. Louis never trembled. Never. For every tremble Louis received from people, it was because he earned it. Reporters said he was effortless, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Louis had been putting effort into every action since he was nine-years-old.

It was effort that had him mulling for hours over sheet music, teaching himself underneath a dim lamp how to read notes because his mother couldn’t afford classes. It was effort that pushed him to form the band, Wolves, with three close friends from Manchester University. It was effort that forced him to balance an academic scholarship and late-night rehearsals. It was effort that made Louis send hundreds of flash drives to different labels until they were signed. It was effort that got them a number one single on the Billboard charts. It was effort that kept him from breaking down after his mother’s death because just one week prior, the band begun their international tour. It was effort that kept him from giving into baited speculation over his preference of sexual partners. It was effort that got Louis to the point where Wolves was one week from recording their second album.  

The man across from him was the definition of artful-effortlessness. He was the kind of person that allowed looks to speak for him. Loud. Brash. Other-worldly. Attention-seeking without bothering to open the wide mouth that took over a third of his sculpted face. He watched the right corner of the other man’s lips as it jaunted into a broader grin. _Do you already know?_ Louis wondered, almost hoping the question was plainly written in his eyes. _Do you know that in this moment, I’ve never hated anyone more than you?_ His smile unknowingly remained the same. Louis’ own mouth tightened into a flatline. _Of course you wouldn’t know._

When he stopped just in front of Louis, the other barber returned to her customer. His weight shifted to his left leg, but not in a gesture of restlessness. He minutely raised an eyebrow. “First time here?”

Louis hated that the man’s first words directed to him unintendedly pointed out his inferiority. He was the stranger inside the warped shop, not the apparent love-child of Steven Tyler and a meaty spliff. Ruby Tuesday’s was a pretentious secret hidden in the forgotten wrinkles of the London map and it would be ridiculous to suggest he merely stumbled into the wrong shop. It was too late to leave the shamrock field that evenly stared back at him with neutrality.

Dancing around the question, Louis lifted the card and evasively said, “My manager suggested this place.” He lifted a shoulder as if he wasn’t anywhere out of the ordinary. “I figured I’d listen to her for once and give it a go.”

The other man didn’t even blink at the term “manager”. A significant part of Louis was disappointed that he didn’t press with, _“Manager? Are you an actor? Musician?”_ Louis would have even allowed himself to tremble again if only to hear that low voice flirtatiously say, _“Should I have you sign something before you go?”_ Louis wanted to impress him. He wanted to impress the other man while simultaneously making him drown in the same pool of jealousy that he waded in.

“Cool,” he easily said. Without trepidation, he reached out a hand. “Welcome, I’m Harry.” His free hand limply gestured towards the space. “This is my shop.”

It was too blunt, too casual for the weight of information he unceremoniously threw at Louis. He gave out his name as if it was synonymous with the barbershop’s. Another title for the establishment. His clothes held the same surface level purpose that the windows did on the first floor. They were there to make people halt in place and to try to look inside, but like the shop, people would surely give up. They would see nothing more than thick curtains and a solid structure. Few people knew they could summon more if they snuck inside and made it through the guarded corridor. Louis wanted to claw his way inside if only to shove an authentic Harry out for the world to gawk at.  

“Louis,” he carefully introduced. He hesitated before shaking Harry’s hand, briefly distracted by the burgundy painted nails that were extended towards him. Louis kept Harry’s gaze when their hands finally grasped each other. The silver of Harry’s two rings bit into Louis’ skin with their cool touch, but Louis refused to acknowledge it. He kept his eyes on the other man. It wasn’t even meant to be challenging. Louis just wanted to catch a flicker of _something_ dance across Harry’s expression. He could handle attraction, disgust even, but what he couldn’t handle was the sheer nothingness that was reflecting back at him. To Harry, it was the same as any other handshake. Louis was just another person walking past the establishment that was his body. Louis gently squeezed before letting go. Nothing.

“Follow me,” he breezily said, turning before even finishing the direction.

Harry spoke in short sentences as if each word had a price and Louis had revealed he was on a slim budget. Contradictingly, he also drawled out every word. He made it seem like it was to indulge not only himself, but those around him with the sound of the gravelly timbre. Louis also noticed that Harry kept his hands by his side, unafraid to keep himself bare. He was unwilling to hide himself with folded arms over his broad chest. It seemed Harry didn’t deem his hands to be guilty enough to keep them tucked in the pockets of his velvet trousers.

“Can I get you anything?” Harry asked, his head turned towards the right, but he didn’t look over his shoulder to properly look at Louis. He kept walking as he listed, “Coffee, tea, water?”  

The offer sounded practiced, but not tired. Louis was sure it was routine for him to offer every customer. He quickly debated which answer would be less-used. He wanted to fall in the category that would provoke Harry. Finally settling on a decision, Louis watched Harry’s gait when he said, “Tea with a bit of honey if you’ve got it. Thanks.”

Louis didn’t like honey in his tea, but it would make Harry take an extra step. Perhaps honey would force Harry to apologetically turn to him and say they didn’t have any. Louis would get to see his mellow expression crack. Of course, Harry didn’t falter in his response, but Louis did.

“That’s how I take mine.”

Harry said it with simplicity, but he still didn’t turn towards Louis with comradery when he said it. He didn’t even offer the blank smile that seemed to naturally remain on his face. Louis was reminded of preachers that spouted they were just like the congregation, but hinted they were slightly better because they were chosen to be a little bit closer to their deity. It was as if Harry had said, _“We’re alike, but don’t think we are the same.”_ Louis was dumbfounded. He had wanted to be the one to infer something so callous first.

Louis was led to the back left of the barbershop. There were four ceramic sinks, four chairs, and an extensive array of hair products that rested on a thick wooden shelf. Pressed flush against the wall was a small counter that had a kettle resting on a hot plate, a yellow teapot, and multiple metal tins by its side. Harry turned on the plate and then lifted a smock from one of the chairs.

“Jacket?”

Louis frowned, looking away from the tins. “Excuse me?”

“Your jacket,” Harry monotonously pressed as he raised the smock in his hand. “On or off?”

“Oh, right,” Louis shook his heads, his thoughts still coated in honey. He started to strip off the fitted jacket. “Off, please.” Louis delicately passed it to Harry, silently suggesting it was expensive. “Thanks.”

Harry took it from him without any hint of annoyance or understanding and hung it on a nearby coat rack. He stepped behind Louis and didn’t saying anything when he looped the black smock over Louis’ dress shirt and started to knot the ties. Harry loomed over him by at least half a foot and the position felt degrading. He could feel a steady exhale of air lap along his neck and he resolutely anged his chin upwards. Just before he stepped away, Harry’s fingers grazed his skin or maybe Louis just wanted him to because he thought he felt Harry’s ministrations falter.

“You can take a seat,” Harry rather instructed than suggested as he stepped to the side of the center chair. He turned the faucet of the sink on and slipped his rings off into a small dish.

Louis eyed the motion. The clogs in his head steadily churned. “Just outta curiosity,” he dragged out and waited until Harry turned to him before impolitely asking, “why do you bother if you know you’re just gonna take them off?”

Harry didn’t blink. His glassy expression was in perfect condition. A wrinkle didn’t even appear on his supple skin. Without abandon, he answered, “Because I like them.”

Self-confidence cushioned the words and it threw Louis right back to Harry’s introduction. Nobody walked around with their cardhand visible for the world to see. Artists, if that’s what this man even classified as, rarely offered their feelings so freely to people they didn’t know. It was the type of answer that could make someone feel like they received something genuine and uniquely tailored, but Louis knew better than to get the impression Harry thought he was special.

“Yeah, but,” Louis paused while he sat down and scooted towards the back of the seat, “You have to do that every time you get a customer.”

“I do. Please lean back.”

Louis tried not to sound interrogative when he pressed, “And that doesn’t annoy you?”

Harry held his hand underneath the jet of water. “That doesn’t annoy me.”

The way Harry threw Louis’ own words back with a duller cadence left an acidic taste in his mouth.

“Seems like more effort than it's worth,” Louis commented, more so to himself that time. He reclined his head, rested the base of his neck on the sink, and blinked up at Harry who was watching him with an sliver of curiosity. _Finally, something._ Louis felt something close to rejuvenation. He shrugged a shoulder, an action that could be deemed as thoughtless, and tacked on, “No offense, mate.”

“I disagree with you,” Harry said without elaboration as he pulled the hand-held faucet from its place. He carded his left hand through Louis’ hair and wetted it. Conversationally, as if Louis hadn’t even commented on the rings, Harry asked, “Temperature alright?”

“Uh, yeah,” Louis stiltedly nodded, still mentally clinging to Harry’s response.

It wasn’t that he expected Harry to agree with his semi-attack, but he certainly did not expect Harry to outrightly say he disagreed. No one had dismissed Louis’ words quite like that. _I disagree with you_ . Usually people who had a retort would go about saying it in a roundabout manner. He had never been upfrontly told, _“I disagree with you.”_ Harry’s response didn’t have an argumentative ounce of inflection to it which made the four words even more jarring to hear. Louis wasn’t sure if he wished they did. Somehow, the blatancy had the ability to sting more than a sharp jab back. He wondered if his words stung Harry, too. Looking at Harry’s nonplussed countenance, curiosity disappearing as quickly as it had appeared, Louis figured they didn’t.

Harry’s nails lightly scratched Louis’ scalp and if Louis was a weaker man, he would have satedly sighed. He closed his eyes while the warm water slicked his hair back. Not having to look, Louis knew Harry was leaning directly over him. Warmth radiated onto his skin as if he was sat underneath a heat lamp. Harry’s hands left his hair and when he reached to get shampoo, a sickeningly sweet smell filled Louis’ nose. His mouth watered like one of Pavlov’s helpless dogs.     

Without opening his eyes, Louis deeply inhaled and asked, “Is the shampoo s’posed to smell like apple pie?”

“No,” Harry’s hands returned to Louis’ head to lather his hair, “that’s me.”

“ _What?_ ”

“It’s scented oil,” Harry airily stated and started to wash out the suds.

A startled laugh was caught in the barrel of Louis’ throat and his hand flung to cover his mouth. He opened his eyes, vision a bit blurry from unshed tears. Louis wiped a hand over his face, a string of chuckled stuttering out on their own accord.

“You mean to tell me you willingly wear oil that smells like a gran’s oven during the holidays?”

“ _Autumn Apple Cider,_ actually. I don’t enjoy apple pie.” The kettle began to whistle, pulling Harry’s attention away from Louis. A pleased smile eased over his face. “Ah, tea.”

Louis gaped at him, hoping he was just imagining the gimmick standing above him. He felt as if he had swallowed his tongue and couldn’t possibly speak. Harry finished washing out the shampoo, quietly humming along to The 5th Dimension’s trippy single, “Aquarius”, and towel-dried Louis’ damp hair.    

Harry moved to stand in front of the line of tins, his spindly fingers dancing over their lids. He warmly looked at them and prattled off different names as if he was introducing his children, “Cardamon Cinnamon, Rose Petal, Cranberry Blood Orange, Natural Hibiscus, Ginseng Peppermint...Oh, I do have an imported Jasmine that’s quite good with Eucalyptus honey, if you’d like.”

_That’s the most emotion you’ve shown since I got here and it’s about fucking tea leaves._

“Are—Are you serious?” Louis slowly said, eyes the nearly the size of the saucers Harry was pulling from an overhead cabinet. “Did you just say ‘eucalyptus honey’?”

Incredulousness must not have properly bled into his voice because Harry turned to look at him with a hint of a true smile. He picked up a jar of honey. “Don’t worry, it’s organic. I know the bees that made it.”  

Louis’ jaw hung impossibly lower. “You…You know the bees…”

“They’re not mine, but yes.”  

Harry sincerely nodded when Louis didn’t respond. There wasn’t a trace of laughter in Harry’s expression and Louis was genuinely worried about letting him anywhere near his head with a pair of trimming scissors. Unable to do anything else, Louis numbly agreed to the Jasmine tea. A mantra of _I would love to punch your stupid bee loving face right now_ was circuiting throughout his mind in fast loops. Harry tapped his foot along to the song and placed a strainer in the teapot for the loose leaves. Louis’ gaze was rooted on Harry’s movements, partially believing that if he looked away, Harry would disappear because nobody was _that_ bizarre.   

With two steaming cups placed on saucers, Harry started towards one of the stations on the right wall. Again, he didn’t look over his shoulder to tell Louis to follow along.

“Sit,” Harry said, placing the two cups down.

Louis felt torn between preferring the short answers or eccentric ones. It seemed that there wasn’t any middle-ground and he despised it. He sat on the leather chair and rested the bottom of his feet on a metal footrest. Louis looked into the vanity, his eyes catching Harry’s as the other man slipped his fingers back into Louis’ damp hair.   

“What do you want?” Harry’s gaze didn’t leave Louis’.  

It took him a moment to realize Harry was talking about the haircut.

“Just a trim.” He reached back and tugged the longer hairs at the nape of his neck. “I want to clean it up a bit, but I don’t like it short.”

“It is, though.”

Louis frowned, “Huh?”

“Your hair,” Harry purposefully tussled Louis’ limp fringe, “it’s already short.”

Louis bristled, his cheeks turning pink, “Is not.”

“Yes, it is,” Harry pointedly pinched a few of his own curls between his fingers, the response radiating the same tone of his earlier sentiment: _I disagree with you._

Stubbornly, Louis turned in the seat so he could properly glare while he gestured, “Everyone’s hair is gonna be short compared to yours, pal.”

Harry didn’t instantly respond. His head slightly tilted to the side before he minutely shrugged. “Okay.”

Louis frowned, his fingers dipping into the meat of his thighs.

“Wanna taste it before I start?” Harry asked, picking up one of the cups.

 _No, I don’t want to try your organic bee tea, you outrageously airheaded Mick Jagger_ _doppelgänger_ _fuck._

Despite himself, Louis nodded. “Yeah.”

Louis took the proffered cup and hesitantly sipped the steaming liquid. Heat flushed through his body as he swallowed. Harry patiently watched from over the lip of his own cup. Disappointment grated his ego. It was delicious. Louis wanted to scream.  

“So?” Harry dragged out the single word as if it had thirty letters.

Swallowing another sip, Louis pursed his lips. He put the tea down and blankly said, “Not really for me.”

_What’re you going to do about it?_

Harry unflinchingly finished off his own dainty cup even though he probably burned the roof of his mouth, shrugged, and picked up Louis’ discarded cup. “That’s fair,” was all he said before pouring the contents of Louis’ cup into his own and taking a large sip.

“What’re you doing?!”  Louis flailed his hands out, effectively making a few heads turn towards their station. “I wasn’t done!”

“You weren’t?” Harry rather mused than asked, his voice light and and words unweighted. “You didn’t like it.”

“That doesn’t mean I was gonna waste it!”

“It wasn’t wasted. I enjoy it, so I’m drinking it.”

“Fucks sake,” Louis rushed out under his breath. His usually non-existent temper flared up like a roaring bonfire. He pinched the bridge of his nose and deeply inhaled to settle himself.

Harry pointed towards the direction of the sinks. “I can make you another.”

Louis rolled his eyes and sarcastically clucked, “Cheers, mate, but no thanks.”

“Okay.” Harry pulled out an electric trimmer and easily added, “Cool.” He grabbed a comb and looked at Louis in their reflection. “Lean your head forward.”

Louis’ jaw clenched and he tucked his chin towards his chest. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to be distracted by the distinct sound of the trimmer buzzing. Harry was silent as he began to skim the head of the cutting guard over Louis’ neck. His skin vibrated against the touch, but it wasn’t enough to make Louis uncomfortable. His loose tongue wanted to fill the stagnant air with pointed conversation.   

“So...this is your shop?”

“Yup.”

Louis waited for Harry to say more. When more than five seconds passed, it was clear Harry wasn’t going to add further detail without coaxing. Louis ground his teeth together. _Great start, Tomlinson._ He tried a different tactic. “So you’re the music fanatic, then?”

“I don’t like the word fanatic,” Harry thoughtfully drawled.

“Why not?”

Harry touched Louis’ chin to angle it as a forty-five degree angle. “It’s too bold.”

“ _Fanatic_ is too bold for you? Have you looked in a mirror recently?” Louis shot back, far past the point of caring to hide the incredulous laughter that coated his words. “This whole,” he waved his hand towards Harry’s reflection, “ _thing_ you’ve got goin’ on is about as bold as it gets.”

Harry slowly lowered his hands and met Louis’ gaze in the vanity. The heavy pause before his response suggested that whatever he was going to say should be immortalized in marble. Louis angled his head to an upright position and waited.   

“The weight of appearances can’t be measured to the weight of words.”

_You have got to be fucking with me._

When Harry gave zero indication that he was messing about, Louis stubbornly amended the question, his voice coming out gruff, “Okay, you’re a music fan? Better?”

“I am a connoisseur of vintage music.”

“ _That_ sounded better to you than fanatic?”

“It’s more accurate.”

Against his better judgement, Louis wearily asked, “How’s it more accurate?”

“I only listen to music from the twentieth century.” Harry brushed stray hairs from the back of Louis’ neck. “Sixties, seventies, and eighties, mainly.”   

“Of course you do,” Louis huffed, his eyes nearly getting stuck in the back of his skull from how hard he rolled them. A fresh injection of bitterness plagued his mind. Louis couldn’t help but to dwell on the notion Harry would never hear his music. Even more so, it was likely he wouldn’t even be open to listening to it. Louis remained his inferior.

“Let me guess,” Louis condescendingly drawled. “You collect vinyls.”

“I do,” Harry candidly said, Louis’ tone having no effect on him. He moved towards Louis’ left and continued to trim away. “I prefer tapes, though.”

“Tapes as in...cassette tapes?” That did surprise Louis.

Harry hummed in agreement and without explanation.

“Well,” Louis sighed when Harry didn’t continue, “are you gonna tell me why?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I’m asking now.”

“Technically, you’re not,” Harry mildly said.

“Alright,” Louis gritted from behind his teeth, sounding slightly manic to his own ears. “Tell me, Harry, why do you prefer cassette tapes?”

“Because I like to make mixtapes.”

Louis frowned. “What, like, playlists?”

“No, not like playlists,” Harry parroted and stepped back. He took his hat off and set it on the counter. Harry began to gather his long tresses into his fist, secured an elastic around the bun, and carried on with his thought. “They’re very different.”

“How’re they different?” Louis pressed, doing his absolute best not to sound like he was talking to a toddler. “Both are a group of songs, but one takes a whole lot longer to make. Not to mention no one even has a Walkman anymore. Or a boombox. No one can even listen to ‘em.”

“I have a two Walkmans.”

A startled laugh pushed its way from his diaphragm. “What could you possibly need two for?”

“If I leave one here, I still have one at home.”

“Okay...that’s...well, that’s actually fair,” Louis relented. “But I’m still standing by my point that the average person hasn’t listened to a cassette in probably two decades. The only reason you have them is ‘cos you like wasting time making mixtapes.”

“Taping a collection of songs is an art,” Harry picked up a pair of shiny scissors and began clipping renegade hairs. “Stakes are higher to pick the right songs. You can’t just _delete_ them with a click like a playlist. It takes consideration for each song, even more so if it’s for another person. Two sides, forty-five minutes” he snapped his fingers, “That’s it.”  

The sheer passion that coursed through Harry’s words gave Louis his first true look into authenticity. Louis wanted to draw it out like sucking venom from a serpent’s wound.

“So...you make mixtapes of old music and don’t listen to anything new?”

“Yup.”

“How d’you not run out of material? You never get any new music.”

“It’s not about new music. It’s about vibes.”

Louis valiantly tried not to laugh. He clasped his hands together under the smock. “Vibes?”

“Yes.”

“Care to explain?”

Harry brushed off more stray hairs. “Each mixtape speaks to a vibe.” He separated Louis’ fringe into three parts and secured two of them with clips. “Could describe a person, a place, an emotion. Anything.”

“But, eventually, you’re gonna reuse the same songs.”

“You could use the same ten songs thirty times, but if they’re arranged differently, each would create a different vibe.”

“Okay,” Louis semi-nodded, feeling a bit of a connection to the other man. “I get it.”

Wolves spent days yapping back and forth during the recording of their first album because they wouldn’t agree on an order for the tracks. It was an even larger ordeal when they went on tour and made a setlist. The order of songs did make a massive difference to an experience. Louis reluctantly found an inch of respect for Harry.  

Harry bobbed his head in a disjointed nod and mellowly drawled, “Groovy.”

The momentary cease-fire was instantly ruined.

“Groovy?” Louis groaned. “Please tell me you’re tripping on acid because that’s the only excuse for using _groovy_.”

Shockingly, that was the comment from Louis that made Harry looked somewhat offended and it was the only one Louis meant jokingly. Harry’s eyebrows knitted together and his shoulders pulled back, the crocheted vest straining over his frame. “Excuse you, my body is a temple.”

Louis slowly counted to ten and then did it once more because he wanted to bash his head against the counter.

“I genuinely have no idea what to say to that.”

Harry shook his head with something that was close to disappointment and it unnerved Louis how much he hated that even more than the idiotic statement of _my body is a temple_. He watched Harry’s face clear of the barely brooding storm that began to cloud his open expression. Harry pursed his lips to softly whistle and went back to trimming. Effortlessly unaffected.

A couple of minutes stretched between them. Since Louis apparently had the inability to make himself shut up, he was the one to fill the gap. With the tone of a schoolboy getting reprimanded, Louis forced himself to say, “If I offended you—”

“You did,” Harry interjected with a directness that was pointed, but not cruel.   

Harry unclipped the middle portion of Louis’ hair and ran a comb through the tresses. He pinched the hairs between his index and middle finger, his tongue poking out in concentration as he snipped a few centimeters off the ends. Sweat beaded on Louis’ neck.

“Right.” Louis forced a stilted laugh, “I mean—I was joking. It wasn’t serious.” Harry unclipped the third portion of Louis’ fringe. The mellow sound of his humming returned. Louis swallowed a snarky comment and lightly pressed, “Not gonna let me off the hook, hmm?” His hand poked out from underneath the smock to roll in the air. “No _‘it’s fine’_ or _‘I forgive you’_?”

Harry didn’t miss a beat. “You didn’t apologize and I don’t lie.”

“Oh.” Louis cleared his throat, not used to someone bluntly pointing at the elephant in the room for what it was. “Well, I’m sorry.” He pinched the back of his hand because the apology sounded false to his own ears as it came out. Harry made a noncommittal sound and started on the last section of Louis’ hair. Inexplicably feeling the need to defend himself, Louis continued to ramble, “It’s been—Well, to be honest, work’s gone to shit within the past...oh, I dunno, few hours? The guy standing in for my guitarist has gone and chopped off his bloody finger. His. Finger.” He manically laughed. “No lead guitarist to record next week and my manager is probably just listening to _Rent_ while she eats placentas.”

Everything slipped from Louis’ mouth without a sense of filter as the severity of the event finally caught up to him. It had taken her nearly a month to find someone of Al’s caliber and this go around, they had a week. Barely. He groaned and shut his eyes, temporarily forgetting he was in a public space, less than a foot separating him from Mister Holier Than Thou.

“So...you’re having a bad day.”

Louis’ teeth ground together at the simplicity of the statement. The words were spoken as if Louis was an entrapped ape that Harry was studying and he had just realized Louis had the capability to sign “hello”. Louis wanted to kick him. No, he wanted Harry to finish cutting his hair, and _then_ he wanted to kick him. With a startling amount of resilience, Louis settled for opening his eyes and no shin kicking. He summoned his best glare, feeling nothing short of loathing towards the man hovering over him. Eloquent as ever, Louis responded with, “No shit.”

Harry solemnly nodded before saying, “That’s good.”

“How is any of that good?” Louis incredulously asked, his body vibrating with constant surges of irritation. “Really, how did you manage to gather that?”

Harry picked up a brush from the vanity and dusted away loose strands of hair off of the smock. He grabbed a blowdryer, stood behind the chair, and met Louis’ hardened gaze in the vanity. Harry raised his right shoulder. “You’re having a bad day which means you’re probably not always this rude to strangers.” The corner of his mouth minutely lifted. “That’s good.”

Louis’ jaw dropped and he swallowed the primal instinct to spit back a rebuttal. His tongue was pinched between his teeth, almost hard enough to draw a drop of blood. Heat flooded the apples of his cheeks and he looked down, convincing himself that it wasn’t in resignation, but anger. Harry turned on the blowdryer and slipped his fingers back into Louis’ hair. A sickly bitter taste filled Louis’ mouth because it felt too intimate after the anvil of a statement. Harry’s proximity was his penance and he was being forced to sit through it.

When Harry finished ten minutes later, neither of them had spoken. Louis’ palms were slick with sweat, having felt as if he was put bare in the middle of the sahara from the experience. Harry unclipped the smock and Louis heard rather than saw him walk away. The heels of Harry’s shoes steadily clapped against the floor like a metronome. Steeling a breath, Louis finally looked up at his reflection.

“Fucks sake,” Louis exhaled under his breath.

He hated it.

Technically, he loved it, but that inexplicably meant he had to hate it.

Harry had taken the liberty to give him an asymmetrical fade. It wasn’t at all what Louis had meant when he generically said “trim”. The left side was five-eighths of an inch and tapered to fade just above his ear while his fringe was parted to right. Matte wax added a hint of a wave to his hair and it was a far cry from the pristine quiff he usually maintained. It wasn’t what he asked for and that alone warranted Louis to sue the owner. But it was better than what his own stylist had been doing for the past two years.

He loved it.

And he hated it.   

“Your jacket.”

Louis snapped his gaze from the mirror and cleared his throat. He stood from the chair and wiped his hands over his front even though both of them knew Harry had brushed all of the stray hair to the floor. Something close to a grimace sat on his expression while he accepted the jacket.

“Thanks,” he mumbled and slipped the material back on.

Both men were silent, Harry’s expression neither pensive nor blank as he blatantly stared. “Steve will ring you up at the front if that’s all for today,” Harry finally said when the quietness became deafening.

Louis nodded and mentally rolled through different responses because simply leaving felt oddly anticlimactic after spending the better part of the previous hour plotting the man’s demise. Just as he was about to say something potentially idiotic, Harry managed to beat him to it.

Pressing his palms together, Harry slightly bowed his head as if they were finishing a yoga session, and mellowly drawled, “Treat people with kindness, Louis.” He turned on his heel and sauntered away without another look.

Louis was only vaguely aware that his left eye was twitching and “I Wanna Be Sedated” by The Ramones had begun to play.


	2. Buttermilk Primroses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mixtape for chapter two: Walk This Way by Aerosmith, Cherry Bomb by The Runaways, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin, Jolene by Dolly Parton, Mother by Pink Floyd, and Voulez-Vous by ABBA

The days leading up to Wolves’ first recording session had tested the band’s mental well-being. Four days of disappointment after disappointment had walked into Cherry Bomb’s rented booth with electric guitars and little promise of legitimate talent or passion. By Saturday evening, Louis was facedown on the mixing console, vaguely aware that two dials were smushed into his left cheek. 

“Make it stop,” Louis whined when the seventeenth candidate finally left the booth. He lolled his head to the right to look at the two other members who were in a similar state of exhaustion, but were visibly less distressed than him. Louis limply swatted his hand towards the leaner of the two. “Can’t you just do both?”

Niall Horan, the normally chipper one between the three, sulked back, “Yeah, Lou, let me just play bass and lead at the same time this go around. That’s a real brilliant idea you’ve got there.” He kicked out a foot and knocked it into Louis’ shin. “You should’ve learned how to play something other than piano, arsehole.”   

“Fuck off,” Louis huffed out a disgruntled noise, “we all know how well that went last time.” He rested back in the leather desk chair and rolled his eyes. “Apparently, I’m ‘unteachable’.”  

“Zayn’s words, not mine.” Niall grinned at the memory, the grey of his eyes lighting with mischief. 

“You’re not unteachable, you needed more patience,” Liam Payne evenly stated, always the peace-maker. He had been listlessly twirling a drumstick for the better part of the past two hours from his spot in the corner.

“I’m plenty patient, thanks. The guitar was faulty,” Louis snipped. He bitterly added on, “I was definitely doing it the way Zayn told me.”

“Are you daft?” Niall incredulously raised an eyebrow. He rested his elbows on his knees and laughter bubbled over his words. “You only practiced for  _ two weeks _ before getting all stroppy and throwing a fit. I believe we lost more than just one teacup during that episode of yours.”

Louis straightened his back, his voice pitching higher than usual. “I was not stroppy!”  

“Liam,” Niall gestured towards Louis’ general direction, “help me out here.”

“You were stroppy,” Liam easily agreed. “Then again,” his eyes darted from Louis’ frown to the rotating drumstick, “you’re usually a bit stroppy when you can’t pick something up right away.”

Louis opened his mouth to retaliate, but Jules had strode back in. Her frame was rigid and her movements jerky while she forced a smile. The skin underneath her eyes twitched. “We have one more to go tonight, darling dumplings,” Jules announced, sounding more manic than usual. She pinched her fingers together. “Just one more! That’s all. One.”   

“Right,” Louis went boneless in his seat, “but if I hear one more mediocre Green Day cover, I’m gonna quit.” 

The others hummed in assent as the last candidate walked in the booth. It was a man well above fifty, if his pepper hair was anything to go by, and his skin was blatantly deprived of sunscreen in its younger years. He waved towards the window separating them. 

“He’s gotta be older than my dad,” Niall mumbled under his breath and Louis silently agreed. 

Liam quietly chided from his seat, “Give him a chance.”

Jules daintily pressed her finger on the intercom button and politely said, “Thank you for coming in. Can you give us your full name and song title you’ll be performing today?” 

“Simon Cowell,” he introduced himself as he slipped a thick guitar strap over his shoulder. Simon lowered his hands. “And I’ll be playing “American Idiot” by Green Day.” 

Louis slammed his head back on the desk as Niall spat out bouts of laughter. 

“We’re fucked.”

✵

The following morning, at precisely 1:28 a.m., Louis awoke from his slouched position on the living room couch to the sound of his mobile blaring Flogging Molly. He jerked upwards, hands scrambling to uselessly grab purchase on air before he unceremoniously flopped from the edge of the couch and landed on sanded wood floors. He wheezed out a breath and blindly reached above his head for the offending object. Louis glared at the face staring back at him. Begrudgingly, he answered with an annoyed, “Why do you always have to wake me up at ungodly hours?”

He winced from the loud clatter that speared back through the receiver. The noise was splintering inside the otherwise silent flat. It would seem that Niall had decided to go out after all. 

“Fucking get in, I found someone!” Niall screamed, his voice barely carrying over thunderous music and slurred voices. 

“You’re drunk,” Louis deadpanned. 

“That’s beside the point!” Niall laughed and it was too abrasive for Louis’ just-waking-up brain. He carried on, still entirely too loud for the hour, “I found us someone!” 

Louis put his mobile on speaker and rolled onto his back, limbs feeling heavier than usual. He closed his eyes and sighed, “What’re you goin’ on about?”

“Jules fucked off somewhere,” his voice carried off and Louis imagined he was looking for the powerhouse of a woman. Niall made a noncommittal hum after a moment and continued to berate Louis’ eardrums. “Doesn’t matter. Anyways...what was I saying? Oh! Jules dragged me here after rehearsal, goin’ on and on about how I needed—” Louis drifted off for a minute, unable to simultaneously keep up with Niall’s disjointed words and fight off sleep. He shook himself awake to hear the end of Niall’s ramble. “I dunno how this place is real. I know it sounds it, but m’not  _ that _ fucked up.” Niall briefly paused before disbelieving murmuring, “Or maybe I am fucked up.”

“You’re losing me, mate,” Louis sighed, his fingers itching to hang up on his friend. “Get to the point.”

“Right, right,” Niall quickened his speech, “We started drinking, yeah? Shots, beers, and then,” Niall dropped his voice an octave lower, “ _ he _ started playing.” 

“He?” Louis couldn’t help his own laugh at the severity of Niall’s voice. 

“You gotta hear this guy,” Niall said as if he had found the promise land and held the wonders of the world. “Hold on,” he panted into the receiver and then he must have turned his mobile on speaker because the music got extraordinarily louder. 

Louis frowned as his brain finally made sense of the notes coming through. Heady guitar riffs plunged into Louis’ flat and there wasn’t a voice singing along to the track, but Louis was startlingly familiar with it. His nose scrunched because it sounded like the original recording, if not a better, remastered version. 

_ That’s not possible.  _

“Niall...who is that?” 

Niall’s answering laugh was blinding. “ _That_ , my dear friend, is gonna be our new guitarist.” 

It was tinny through the phone, but the fuzzy rendition of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” was still remarkably better than the countless guitarists he had heard through the past week. Louis didn’t have to see him to know the guitarist was bleeding soul into every note. Louis felt something contagious ignite inside his cells and it reminded him of why he chose to follow music in the first place. It was all consuming and he begged his bloodstream to allow itself to drown in the sensation until nothing else remained.  _ He  _ was what they were waiting for. 

“Tell him to come in for an audition tomorrow,” Louis breathlessly said, feeling more awake than he had in nearly a year. 

There was a brief pause before Niall yelled, “You gotta speak up, I can’t hear you!”

“Fucks sake,” Louis groaned and without further comment, hung up the call. 

Louis stared at the exposed wooden beams supporting the loft’s ceiling, his heart madly thrumming beneath his ribs. Moonlight spilled into the vast space from a sunken interior deck and illuminated the brick paneled walls. Sluggishly, Louis stood and padded towards the foot of an industrial staircase that was lined by walnut steps and led to the skydeck. He climbed to the top of the staircase and unlocked the glass door with little strain. 

The night sky cradled him with her chilling breeze, but that didn’t deter him from embracing her atmosphere. Louis needed to clear his head after Niall's call and sitting underneath the stars had become a habitual remedy. He sat on a burgundy cushioned chair that was nestled next to a café table made of iron and settled into the seat. Louis brought his knees against his chest and pulled the cuffs of his wool jumper over his hands. Closing his eyes, he deeply inhaled. Potted delphiniums and roses filled his senses. They were his mother’s favorite. Tucking his head downwards, Louis exhaled and allowed himself to be hopeful that Wolves had found their newest addition. 

✵

“Niall Horan...what the fuck have you done?”

Louis’ hand slipped from the door handle and limply thumped at his side. His pupils dilated as the young man in front of him spun on his heel, and for the second time that morning, said, “Ta-da!” Louis had been silently staring for nearly three minutes by that point.

“It’s great, innit?” Niall excitedly nodded with a growing grin.

“You…” Louis’ voice dropped off and he took a hesitant step forward as if he was entering an unfamiliar territory that was lain with hidden mines. He stopped a few feet from his bandmate, eyes roaming over Niall’s appearance before dumbly stating the obvious. 

“You’ve got blond hair.”

Niall’s head tipped backwards as he laughed and Louis was vaguely aware that Liam was sniggering too. However, Louis was still stuck on the fact that his bassist, who had shaggy brown hair for the last two decades, was sporting a buttermilk blond quiff.

Louis shook his head. “Why have you got blond hair?”

“Jules and Harry thought it’d be a good change for the new album.” Niall did an uncoordinated shrug with his knobby shoulders, missing the way Louis’ entire body went rigid at the second name. 

“Wait, go back,” Louis shook his head, “ _ who _ said it was a good idea?”

“Jules.”

Louis flailed his hand in the air. “No, not Jules! The other name?”

“Harry Styles,” Niall stated as if it was obvious. He rolled his eyes and plopped down in his usual spot. “I was at his shop last night. Jules said you were just there?” When Louis didn’t readily respond, too shell-shocked, Niall squinted his eyes. “Are you feeling alright? We just talked about him last night.”

“No, no, no,” Louis said, his voice shrill inside the small room. He accusingly pointed a finger at Niall. “You never mentioned Harry or his batshit shop!”

“I definitely did,” Niall frowned at Louis’ tone. He meaningfully nodded. “Harry was the one playing last night.” 

Louis’ skin visibly paled to a milky color. His knees wobbled and he ungracefully fell into an empty chair. He cradled his head in his hands, fingernails pressing into his scalp. Saliva gathered in his mouth and Louis forced himself to swallow it back down. 

_ That was Harry? _

Niall obliviously continued to prattle away to Liam, “He’s a fucking trip. I’ve never seen anything like him.” 

“What d’you mean?” Liam asked, curiosity blatant in his voice.

“Well...he dresses all...different? And he talks like—fuck, I can’t even explain it,” Niall breathlessly laughed. Louis felt Niall clap him on the back. “Lou, you know what I mean, yeah?”

Louis’ teeth painfully gritted together. _Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, Niall._ Louis minutely nodded, keeping his head faced down because he needed a moment to recuperate. Harry was going to be auditioning for Wolves in a matter of minutes. What was worse was that just a few hours earlier, Louis was in awe of the nameless (and even better, _faceless_ ) guitarist. Louis had spent his drive to the studio imagining what the guitarist would be like. Out of all the identities he came up with, he never imagined the vintage-music-connoisseur-life-ruining-cockhead. He blamed exhaustion. He blamed Niall. Louis allowed a final moment of denial that Harry wasn’t the one who had made him feel rejuvenated about music, but Niall’s excitement was difficult to ignore.

“He said the blond was inspired by primroses ‘cos I’m a sunny flower in London’s concrete field,” Niall glowed with a weak flick of his wrist as if he had a bashful bone in his body. Louis gawked at his friend because Niall couldn’t be  _ that _ thick. Niall’s nose scrunched and his eyes rolled to the ceiling while he tried to recover the memory. “Or was it daffodils? Dunno, I was a bit too buzzed to understand anything that guy was saying.”

The door to the studio opened and Louis felt the baby hairs stand up along the nape of his neck at the sound of Jules’ voice. 

_ “Eucalyptus honey, you say? I’ll have to get Martin to fetch me some at once. My taste buds cannot go another day without a new sensation!” _

A startling reality dawned upon Louis. He was going to have to sabotage the audition.

Louis lowered his hands and settled them on his kneecaps before forcing himself to turn towards the doorway. Air pushed itself from his diaphragm in a mixture of disbelief and irritation. If Louis had thought for a single moment that he had somehow exaggerated Harry’s image in his mind, he was immediately corrected. 

_ For the love of god. _

Leather. That was the only word Louis was properly computing because Harry had entered the studio head to toe in leather. 

The slick material wore like water over his skin, catching an iridescent reflection from the overhead lights as he stepped into the room. Louis’ eyes bulged as they raked over the long-sleeved maraschino cherry jumpsuit. The fitted sleeves were lined with a bold, black stripe which extended from the top of his broad shoulders, down to the cuffs of his dantier wrists. Harry’s narrow waist was accentuated by a studded belt, and looped around his neck, was a black collar. Two silver necklaces dipped into the V of the jumpsuit’s neckline, and it brought Louis’ attention downwards with it, all the way to his white platforms, which peeked out from flared hems. Louis’ eyes snapped back to Harry’s face just a breath before Harry’s gaze lazily settled on him.     


Harry’s left brow minutely lifted, but the rest of his expression didn’t change. He adjusted a guitar case slung over his shoulder and Louis had only just realized he brought two of them with him. The case in his grip was clearly an electric while the other was an acoustic. 

“Harry Styles,” Jules lightly touched his shoulder before gesturing to the room, “this is Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and you remember Niall, of course.” 

Niall brightly waved as if they were old friends seeing each other for the first time in five years. Liam politely smiled and Louis, well, he didn’t bother to fight off the layer of disgust from the insinuation that Harry wouldn’t have remembered him. How could he not? Why was Louis being introduced as a stranger in the same breath as Liam? It was insulting and he could already feel anger begin to prick at his fingertips. 

“Niall,” Harry pressed his palms together and lowered his head, “Thank you for inviting me.”

Louis ducked his head to scoff.  _ It’s an audition, not a housewarming. _

“Course!” Niall said with a juvenile grin. He opened the door to the booth and gestured for him to enter. “Get settled and give us a thumbs up when you’re ready.” 

Harry nodded and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear as he entered the recording booth, Jules following close behind to blindly assist. When the door shut behind them, Niall immediately reared on Louis. “Why do you look constipated?”

Louis gaped and unsubtly pointed towards the window of the booth. “Do you not see him?!” He rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t belong with us. Fucks sake, he’s the sort of walking cliché that we’ve shat on the past four years. Coming in here to be this authentic junkie rock n’ roller that’s too good for the real world.” An ingenuine laugh spat from Louis’ mouth and he raised his hands. “Sorry, not the junkie bit.  _ That _ would be ridiculous because he says his body is a goddamn temple.” 

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit judgemental?” Niall narrowed his eyes, warmth swiftly leaving his expression. 

“Of course I am,” Louis folded his arms and widened his eyes, “because it’s  _ true _ !” He jutted his chin towards the window. “He told me himself last week.”

Niall disbelievingly scoffed. “Harry,  _ that  _ Harry, said that he’s too good for the real world?” 

“Well,” Louis nearly stomped his foot, but refrained, “not exactly.”

“You’re being ridiculous. That bloke doesn’t have a rude bone in his body.”

“What d’you know?” Louis snorted. He snarkily shot back, “You were probably already pissed when you let him turn you into a blond stepford wife."

“Whoa, time out!” Liam stepped between the two, frown lines carving into his skin. He turned towards Louis. “You’re being a dick. Apologize to Niall.”  Liam’s expression softened when he looked at Niall and tacked on, “And you do not look like a stepford wife. It’s different...but nice. A nice different.” 

“Thank you,” Niall beamed. He glared at Louis. “Glad  _ someone _ in this band thinks so.”

Louis sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. He was taking his anger out on Niall who naturally thought well of everyone. It wasn’t Niall’s fault that he was blinded by Harry’s gaudy exterior and flowery vocabulary. Lowering his hand, Louis quieted his voice back down to an appropriate decimal, and agreed with Liam, “The color does look good.” When Liam unsubtly elbowed him, Louis added, “And I’m sorry. He just...puts me on edge.” 

Niall’s shoulders sagged. “I know you’re stressed out, but we all are, yeah? We all want this audition nightmare to end.” He slung an arm over Louis’ shoulder. “So let's not bite each others heads off just yet. Fair?”

Liam expectantly looked at Louis when he lengthily paused on a response. 

“Fair,” Louis eventually nodded and circled his arm around Niall’s waist, feeling some bottled-tension leave his system. He added under his breath, “But I’m not gonna pretend to like him.”

“You don’t have to like him,” Niall brightly clapped his back, “just his talent.”

_ That’s what I’m terrified of. _

The notion of Harry naturally being a momentous figure with genuine capability terrified Louis because that would mean he had underestimated Harry entirely. It was easy to be disgusted by every kitschy mannerism when it felt warranted by callous effortlessness. Louis’ jealous compuslison sickeningly drove him to a frenzy of  _ I must know every tainted facet and if there are none, for the love of God, tell me nothing. Don’t let me learn there are deeper troves inside your marble-carved frame that I could never achieve or comprehend. _ Louis would rather be blind than eternally sift through a pungent haze of jealousy. 

His stomach curled on itself. 

Jules popped back into the mixing room and shut the door behind her. Her hands were poised in the air as if she was about to conduct a symphony. With a lift of her shoulders and a slow shake of her hair, Jules announced, “He is ready to perform.”

“Great,” Louis mumbled to himself, swallowing his fears and sending a listless prayer to deity above that Harry would choke during the performance. Niall pinched his shoulder in warning and then sat down. The other three followed suit and angled their chairs towards the window. 

Harry stood in the center of the room, elongated fingers grasping a maple sunburst Fender Stratocaster.  His stature was relaxed as if his body would bow over from a light breeze. The relaxed posture gave an air of indifference and ill-preparedness for the immensity of an opportunity he was being gifted. Louis ground his teeth and reminded himself to ask Harry why he would want to be apart of the recording in the first place. As far as he could tell, Harry didn’t have a single motive to be there.

Jules pressed the intercom. “What have you got for us today,  mon trésor?”

Niall spun towards her with raised brows. “Since when do you speak French?”  

“Since I was a mere babe, Niall, now hush,” Jules trivially waved him off.  

Niall looked to Louis who shrugged with a stifled snicker as if to say, _ Are you surprised? _

“Some Led Zeppelin,” Harry mellowly answered while he ran his hand down the fingerboard, “some Nirvana.”  

Louis pointedly glared at Niall. 

“So he’s a little... _ vague _ .” Niall held up his palms.

“Is that what we’re calling it?” Louis dryly asked.  

“At least he didn’t say Green Day,” Niall chuckled. 

“Both bands are a bit of a bold choice, don’t you think?” Liam chimed in after Louis flicked Niall, sounding exponentially more nervous than Harry himself. 

_ Idiotic  _ was the word Louis had mentally settled on, but he agreed with Liam nevertheless. It was a rookie mistake to audition with any piece from rock n’ roll’s most influential list. Inevitable comparisons would ensue and it was rarely for the better. Back in primary, Louis witnessed a peer ruin “Gimme Shelter” in a talent show, and to that day, he couldn’t listen to the song without hearing the ghost of a shrill voice. The viscous part of his conscience gloated that Harry had inevitably set himself up for failure.  _ Good _ .

Harry’s eyes closed and his stance widened half a foot. A profound inhale visibly lifted his shoulders before the pads of his fingers slid to play a G-flat major. He exhaled and then the staccato riff of “Immigrant Song” stormed through the studio like a brigade of wild colts trampling over midwestern plains. Harry’s demeanor transformed into unadulterated frenetic energy when his fingers strutted over the frets. Cascades of curls painted the air in vibrant strokes. Each pulsation pulled a reaction from his vixen-like silhouette, curving and concaving with each plummeting stroke. Passion pushed itself to Harry’s hollow cheeks, blossoming them with rosy hues as he poured his entire being into the viking anthem. In that moment, Louis felt his lifeline tether itself to Harry; fruitlessly, yet desperately begging to swallow the memory whole as if to immortalize it within himself. 

When the final rift echoed around them, the world Harry had created collapsed. Harry’s posture returned to its equilibrium of effortlessness. Every trace of the performance was ripped away in a haste, the only evidence left behind was the traitorous adrenaline that still colored Harry’s cheeks. Louis felt disoriented by the abrupt return of the facade he had trained his senses to hate. The worshipped memory he had just swallowed wanted to purge itself back into the world of nothingness, morphing its gluttonous taste of brilliance into bitterness.

_ Are you making a fool out of me? _

Niall, Liam, and Jules were applauding the performance with hastened words of praise. Quick talk of recording was batted between the three. Louis couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. He watched Harry’s mouth move to form a response, but didn’t understand the words that were tumbling out. It wasn’t until the last of red was about to wash from Harry’s expression, that Louis jerked into action. He wasn’t sure who he interrupted, but his voice was cutting when he ordered, “Do another.”

Three faces incredulously whipped towards him, undoubtedly assuming that Louis was suggesting Harry wasn’t good enough. That wasn’t it at all. They wouldn’t even understand if he had bothered to explain. Louis had to know that what he had seen, what Harry had _ done _ , wasn’t another one of his illusions.

“What’re you doing?” Niall gritted out from behind his clenched teeth.

Louis ignored him, forcing himself to keep Harry’s vacant gaze. “Do another.” He pointed towards the acoustic guitar that Harry brought. “Something slower.” 

“Slower?” Harry airily returned, passing Louis’ words between them as if not to spare any of his own. 

“Slower,” Louis decidedly said. He sat back and watched Harry slip the electric guitar from his shoulder and unpack the acoustic.

It seemed curiosity overrode his bandmates’ annoyance with his antics because their complaints petered out. They settled into their chairs and silently watched Harry tune a black Gibson. Louis’ thumb repeatedly tapped his thigh, trying to assemble some form of control over his body. As he waited, regret began to plague his insides like cancerous twines of ivy. Asking for more from Harry made Louis feel like a child digging into a bruise that they wish would disappear. He was only making matters worse, but he couldn’t stop. He had to keep clawing at the wound. His heart rate rabbitted as conflictions clashed into each other in a sudden onslaught. 

_ Don’t tell me there is more to you than I thought. Show me what you’re hiding and lay yourself bare. Don’t be better than me. Prove to me that you can do what I can’t. Don’t take this from me. Take my pride from me. I will give you everything if you prove me wrong. Make me tremble just once more. Make me strong. I hate you. I want you. I hate you. I fucking hate you. I’m jealous of you.   _

The disjointed mantra berated him as Harry played his way through Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” with a precision that only encouraged Louis’ self-deprecative surge of loathing. He hated that it wasn’t enough. The moment the song finished, Harry’s walls were boarded and his countenance blank. Louis wanted to stop pushing. He knew that there wasn’t a sincerely logical reason why he still wanted to.  _ Would I ever be sated? What are you trying to hide? What am I trying to hide?  _ Louis’ body felt unhinged. 

Louis stood and paced the floor, hands rested on the dip of his waist. Eyes were on him, but everyone must have thought better than to interrupt his train of thought. His gaze repeatedly flicked towards Harry as if the other man would give him a clue. He didn’t. He either felt nothing or gave away nothing. Possibly, it was both. Pausing his ministrations, Louis stepped towards the mixing table and placed his palms on the lip. He looked down before saying, “Give me something softer.”

_ Why am I helping you prove me wrong? _

Harry fractionally tilted his head. “That was softer.”

Louis shook his head and tried not to sound too manic. “That was  _ slower _ .” He gestured towards the rest of the band who were incredulously staring at him. “We need someone who can play ballads. I’m not recording unless it’s right and I gotta know you can do it right.”

It was a patch-job scapegoat and he wondered if Harry could sense it. Louis would never know if he did because Harry loosely nodded and replied, “Okay.” 

Louis lowered his head, opting not to look at Harry as he begged for his thoughts to slow down.

He waited. 

Harry exhaled. 

_ “Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?” _

Louis snapped his head upwards as Harry’s quiet voice enveloped the booth. 

_ “Mother, do you think they’ll like this song?” _

Forlorn treacle gently dripped into every question that he posed, using Roger Water’s words, but inexplicably making it sound as if he had constructed them himself during the honest hours of daybreak. The lyrics were caressed with a whisper and Louis’ subversive mind thought of the potential harmonies that could be born if their voices melded together. Harry’s throatier register would cradle the raspier lilt of his voice in its embrace. Ideas, infinitely more potent than true memories, submerged his senses. Echoes of Louis’ own written words parroted from Harry’s lips and then reiterated again by Louis. Ideas and vibratos swapped between two mouths. Two tongues. Together, they’d challenge every other pairing in history. A pearly bead of sweat crept down his neck from the thought alone.

_ “Is it just a waste of time?” _

Harry wasn’t using a microphone, but his voice was strong enough where it would have been impossible for Louis to miss the faintest break on the word “time.” The shatter of Harry’s unfeeling-facade made the performance infinitely more authentic.  _ Authentic _ . Louis clung to the word he never thought he’d associate with the other man.  

_ “Mamma's gonna put all of her fears into you.” _

Louis watched as the field of clovers that had mercilessly taunted his nightmares swiftly disappeared. His spine slackened at the sight because for once, Harry was avoiding eye contact with his intruding onlookers. 

_ “She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.” _

Louis felt like a trespasser that had accidently stumbled upon a child during their heist. He knowingly danced with the devil and his penance was to face someone who was undoubtedly more than what he had bargained for. Louis expected a prop. More gaudy clothes, even. Instead, he was met with a blush that comes from wrecked innocence. It was the rosy hue of a person who had been hurt. 

He almost looked away from the harrowing display, desperate to escape from an emotion that felt close to torture, but then there was a barely noticeable warble of Harry’s chin. The movement could have counted as a flex of muscle to someone less observing. If Louis hadn’t been cataloguing every slope and edge of Harry’s expression, he would have thought the movement was a cruel hallucination of weakness. It wasn’t. Harry unknowingly,  _ carelessly _ , trembled. 

_ “Mamma will always find out where you've been.” _

Hearing the sedative words, Louis had a sudden urge to lock Harry away inside the barber shop he called his own. Make him a prisoner in the chamber that Louis could now understand to be undeniably Harry himself _. Make Harry a prisoner within himself. _ That was what he had to do. What he needed to do. Louis had to be certain that no one else would ever feel the onslaught of pain, confusion,  _ jealousy _ , that Harry brought in his wake. He would toss a key into the murky water of the Thames. No, that was too obvious. Thames held too many secrets already. No, he would keep the key in a drawer and once he was pronounced dead, an auctioneer would stumble upon it during their boisterous display. The auctioneer would never know how to find the shop. Would never know it was even a shop they were looking for. They would not know to search for the upstairs room where Harry was kept. Louis imagined even after his own death, Harry would live. He was permanent. 

_ “Mother, did it need to be so high?” _

Harry closed the song as softly as he had begun it, but the world around them had changed and by extension, Louis had changed. More silence. Four people waited for Louis to speak because regardless of clashing opinions, Louis was the leader and he knew that they would go along with his decision. It came with the role of being the band’s founder. Wolves was all of their dreams, but it was created from his vision. 

Harry looked from the spot on the floor that had captured his gaze during the performance and met Louis’ eyes. He embodied melancholy and childhood disenchantment. It wasn’t going away. _Why are you looking at me like that?_ Louis needed the trace of “Mother” to disappear with Zeppelin. With Dolly. Harry didn’t look away and the glassiness over his eyes wasn’t blank. This was Louis’ penance. _Look at what you’ve done, you sick bastard._ Louis didn’t want to look at him which also meant that he _had_ to look at him. The most disturbing thought shoved it’s way to the forefront, cocky and testing. 

_ Look at what you’ve done, but think of what else you can make him do. _

“So?” Niall finally broke the silence.

He was faced between an ultimatum of being cruelly dismissive or manipulative. Louis knew himself too well to think that either act came from kindness. Talent alone, Harry was more fit to record than Louis was. That made Louis want to shove him out of the booth and forget the entire ordeal. On the other hand, if Louis let him stay, he would force Harry into vulnerability every session. Every minute. It was cruel and addictive and Louis hated Harry just enough to allow it. Harry brought out ugliness inside of Louis that spent years dormantly sleeping. 

_ I envy you. _

Louis’ finger hovered over the intercom for a moment before pressing down. He made himself stare into Harry’s eyes and saw nothingness slowly creep its way back. That was all he needed to dignify his decision. 

“Recording starts tomorrow morning at eleven.”

Relief was palpable in the mixing booth and Louis allowed his lips to curve in a private grin.  _ They have no idea _ . 

Harry’s reaction was slower and less forthcoming, but it revealed itself in the way his frame released a final ounce of tension that clung to the performance. He slipped the guitar strap from his shoulder and dragged out his coined response, “Groovy.”

Louis rolled his eyes, but was glad that irritation could wash over the more distressing emotions he was feeling. He welcomed the surface-level hatred like an old companion he forgot he once detested until they discussed the “good ol’ days”.  

“Fabulous!” Jules airily declared with mist in her eyes. “Just fabulous! I’ll alert Martin and have him fetch the papers from my desk. Nothing out of the ordinary, I assure you. We’ll get you sorted right away.”

When Jules darted from the room with an exaggerated sigh, Niall stood from his seat and muted the intercom. He nudged Louis. “You made the right call.”

Louis watched Harry lower himself to a squatting position while he packed away the acoustic guitar and nodded to Niall in response. Louis was reminded of the first time he saw Harry. The other man had the ability to make a simple pose erotic; the leather only exaggerating what he was naturally capable of. The jumpsuit tightly pulled over the curve of Harry’s thighs; the rounded muscles of his arse. Louis wanted to sink his teeth into the muscle and lath over the impressions with his tongue. Mark him, then soothe him so he might think it was a gesture of adoration and not something undeniably primal. It shouldn’t have startled Louis that he wanted to physically deconstruct Harry. He already wanted to emotionally strip him down so why stop there? Why wouldn’t his body crave to do what his mind ached for? His heartbeat picked up, indescribably feeling as if his body was a traitor to reason.   

“We should take him for drinks,” Liam suggested, stepping towards Louis’ left. “Get to know him a bit before sessions start.”

Niall eagearly rushed out an agreement and Louis reluctantly nodded. All three of them were staring, entranced by Harry’s lucid movements. Louis peered at the other two men from the corner of his eye, wondering if they saw what he saw when he looked at Harry. Doubtful. 

“Where d’you think he even found that thing?” Niall asked after a minute, sounding nauseatingly impressed by Harry’s attire. 

Louis monotonously replied, “Probably mugged a time-traveling hooker on his way over.” 

“You twat,” Niall scoffed with a trace of a smile lifting his mouth.  He pompously lifted his chin and claimed, “I think he looks cool."

Louis glared at Niall and deadpanned, “Tell me you’re taking the piss.” 

Niall held up his hands while laughter was bubbled over his words. “I’m not! I think it’s cool that he wears what he wants.” 

“He looks fucking mental, Niall,” Louis hissed under his breath. 

“He looks fine,” Liam neutrally chimed in. 

Louis rolled his eyes. “Fine? You think he looks  _ fine _ ?”

Liam shrugged and tilted his head from side to side. “It’s a bit out of the ordinary, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad or cool.”

Both Louis and Niall groaned in response. Technically, Louis groaned while Niall flat out booed the third member. Louis elbowed Liam. “You’re not running for mayor, pal, you can stop being so bloody diplomatic between parties.”

Liam flipped both of them off and started towards the booth. Louis and Niall tapered down their residual laughter and followed Liam in. 

“Have any plans tonight?” Liam cordially asked Harry. 

Harry shouldered his guitar case and shook his head. “Nope.” 

There was a brief pause that would normally be filled with someone returning the question, but Harry just stared at the three men. Louis dug his heels into the carpeted floor and valiantly fought an exasperated huff. 

Liam cleared his throat when he understood that Harry wasn’t planning on speaking. “Um, alright. Good.” His eyes slightly widened. “Not that it’s good that you don’t have plans. That’d be weird. I  _ meant _ that it’s good because — ”

“Jesus Christ,” Louis loudly and bluntly cut off Liam’s verbal spew. He cocked his hip to the side and caught Harry’s attention. “We thought it’d be good to get to know you a bit before sessions start.”

“ _ And  _ for you to get to know us, too,” Liam added with a pointed look towards Louis. 

“Right,” Louis stiltedly agreed. He sized Harry up with a raised eyebrow. “You up for it?”  

Harry looked between the band members for a moment and then minutely lifted his shoulders. The blank smile he stored for standby easily returned to his mouth. Louis wanted to wipe it away with sandpaper. Harry loosely nodded as if he was a bobblehead. “Yeah.”

“Great,” Louis said from behind an equally fake grin. “We’ll meet up at Rockwell at eight.”

“Cool,” Harry said with tranquility. He adjusted the case on his shoulder and reached for the front zipper. Louis disbelievingly watched as Harry produced a pad of personalized stationery and a pen from the front pocket. The top of the ivory page had his initials  _ H.E.S.  _ printed in elegant red font. Swirling peacock feathers lined the border and as if that wasn’t enough, the bottom of the page read: Treat People With Kindness. 

_ I’ll show the world a great deal of fucking kindness by burning that pretentious notepad. _

Harry expectantly held the pen over the pad of paper. He slowly blinked at the three men before finally asking, “What’s the address?” 

_ I’m going to kick him. _

“Uh,” Liam stuttered out as wrinkles formed between his eyebrows. He pulled out his mobile and awkwardly said, “I usually just look it up on Maps.” 

Harry’s posture didn’t change as he patiently looked between the phone in Liam’s hand and Liam’s face. Louis felt his mouth pop open and his eyes enlarge. 

Liam’s cheeks tinged red and he looked down. “Guess I’ll look it up.”

Louis’ fingernails pinched his skin. He irately stared at Harry and the glaring amount of bullshit that came along with him. Performance immediately forgotten, Louis felt ricocheted back to pure hatred.  With an unimpressed look, Louis asked, “Can’t you look it up on your own mobile?” 

Niall unceremoniously stepped on his foot, but Louis barely flinched.  

Harry simply shook his head. “No.”

Louis’ hand twitched into a fist. He took a steadying breath before calmly (or as calmly as he could muster) asking, “And why not?”

Louis regretted the question the moment Harry reached back into the pocket and pulled out a gray Motorola flip phone from the nineties. The cover was cracked plastic. No screen on the front. Not even a cheap camera. It was worse than Louis’ first mobile back in primary. Niall did his best to stifle a laugh, Liam nearly dropped his iPhone, and Louis was too dumbfounded to do anything at all. The corner of Harry’s mouth slightly tipped downwards.

“I don’t get internet on here.” 

Feeling as if his body was one gimmick away from exploding, Louis turned on his heel and left the booth. 

✵

Louis adjusted the collar of his his button down while he stood in front of the bathroom vanity. His deft fingertips delicately tugged the wings to the right. A frown pinched his lips and he realigned them for a third time. When he was sure that it was symmetrical, Louis allowed himself a satisfied grin and an appreciative lookover. The black material was simple. Sharp. He couldn’t help the part of his mind that imaginitevely wondered of the monstrosity of an ensemble that Harry would arrive in. He pictured obnoxious patterns and heavily saturated colors that suited a vintage porno.  _ Idiot _ . 

His attention moved from the crisp fold of the collar to his damp fringe. Louis would never admit it aloud, but he spent countless minutes the previous week in attempts of molding his hair in the same fashion that Harry had styled it originally. Something about it was always just slightly off and it caused anger to plume inside his chest. Liam’s words from earlier bounced around in his head, mocking him. 

“ _ You’re usually a bit stroppy when you can’t pick something up, _ blah fuckin’ blah,” Louis bitterly mimicked in a lower pitch. “The fuck do you know, anyways,” he grumbled while he worked a dollop of pommade into his fringe. Several frustrated grunts later and Louis had managed to style his hair into something that vaguely resembled what Harry had done. He tried not to overthink it. Smudging on a touch of eyeliner, Louis deemed himself ready for Rockwell. 

Jules arranged cars for all of them, having profusely refused to allow her “turtle doves” to take public transport to the popular bar. Louis spritzed two pumps of Eros by Versace and allowed the minty fragrance to bleed into his clothing. Rolling his shoulders back, he gathered his belongings and walked to the car waiting out front. 

The drive to Rockwell wasn’t terribly long and Louis spent the trek thinking of what he could ask Harry. He was torn between wanting to submerge himself in Harry’s world of secrets and pretending that he was completely unaffected so not to give Harry the impression he meant anything of importance. Louis’ fingertips prattled against the tops of his thighs in anticipation. 

“Here, Sir,” the driver kindly announced as he pulled up to the curb.

Camera flashes illuminated the pavement and bathed the car in sporadic light. Louis wasn’t remotely surprised that Jules had decided to make a publicity event of the evening. In all truth, it was good promotion to get a buzz going for the upcoming album. He mindlessly wondered if the paps were informed about Harry’s arrival. Louis frowned to himself for even thinking about the possibility because Harry was  _ not _ a member of the band. He was merely a stand-in for a backup. A stand-in for a fingerless man. Clearing his head, Louis opened the door and got out. 

A swarm of voices filled the air and Louis had a practiced smirk painting his lips while he confidently strode to the entrance. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone in particular, having found it was usually best to stay focused solely on the destination. 

“Louis!”

“Louis, look over here, mate!” 

“Louis, show me your arse!”

“Louis, what d’you think of Wolves’ new guitarist?”

The last comment caused Louis to slightly stumble as he reached to shake hands with a familiar bouncer. His shoulders tensed and he nearly snapped at the offending pap. Since entering the limelight, Louis never had a record of aggression or anything less than professional and he was not about to let Body Temple Styles ruin that. He turned towards the pap who made him want to commit murder and soothingly said, “Obviously, it’s gonna be different not having Zayn in the band, but we’re genuinely excited about putting out the new record, yeah.”

“But what about having a new band member?” 

Louis’ lips pinched together before he lightly laughed. He clasped his hands together and nodded. “We’re looking forward to recording together.” 

There was a barrage of new questions, all having to do with Harry. Feeling himself getting vicously close to correcting them that Harry was  _ not _ in fact, in the band, Louis gave a final wave. He shuffled inside and was immediately led through the throng of bar goers by a man at least a foot taller and wider than himself. Louis was fully aware of the women taking pictures and videos of him passing through, but his attention was zeroed in on the roped off booth that was purposely perched on a flat form. More importantly, the one person sitting in it. 

Louis was so overwhelmed with being stuck in a booth alone with Harry that he almost overlooked what the man was wearing. Which, really, was ridiculous given that Harry resembled a pin-up bumblebee. 

Fitted over his upper body was a knitted black jumper; one thick yellow stripe looped around the collar and two more circled each bicep. The cuffs were slightly pulled back to parade the collection of rings that apparently always clung to his spindly fingers. Although, none of that would have been of any consequence if it weren’t for the matching shorts.  _ How did he even manage to get those on? _ Louis’ pupils dilated while they fully took in the sight of the sixties yellow shorts that somehow clung tighter to Harry’s legs than the red jumpsuit. The material was hemmed a third way down his thighs and detailed with thin black lines. 

_ He’s trying to kill me. _

Louis briefly contemplated sprinting from the bar to reevaluate every life choice that brought him to that specific moment. Unfortunately, that was when Harry stood from the plush seat and lethargically leaned back against the backrest of the booth. He crossed one foot over the other, drawing Louis’ gaze towards the thick tennis socks that were accompanied by white scuffed trainers. His posture invited Louis to drink every visible inch of skin in and he almost did. He snapped himself out of the daze.    


“How in the hell did you get in wearing that?” Was how he eloquently opened the conversation. 

Harry didn’t even blink. “What do you mean?”

Louis stepped closer and gestured towards Harry’s outfit. “You — You’re wearing short shorts...to a bar.” 

“Where else would I wear them?”

Louis nearly swallowed his tongue at the seriousness of Harry’s tone. He hysterically flitted his hands in the air as if he was physically batting away his comment. “Right. How incredibly stupid of me.” 

Harry quitely stared at him with a blank gaze and if Louis wasn’t on edge before, he certainly was at that point. Louis refused to look away though, unwilling to lose whatever silent battle they were having. He pulled his shoulders back and slightly widened his stance. After an uncomfortably long stint of silence, Louis’ eyes caught the slight downward pull of Harry’s mouth before he spoke. 

“You must be having another bad day.” 

_ “Oi! Help a lad out!” _

Louis convinced himself that if Niall hadn’t joined them in that moment, he would have snapped a smart remark about respecting boundaries. He would have laid into Harry until the other man felt somewhat remorseful for looking over the glaring reason  _ why  _ Louis was having a bad day. However, his self-bolstering was cut short because Harry simply stopped paying attention to him. He adapted a collected smile and turned towards the other man.   

Niall was struggling a bit with a pitcher of amber beer in one hand and four frosted mugs clumsily clutched in the other. A bartender frantically trailed after him, beaded sweat collecting underneath his uneven hairline. Patrons unsubtly flocked to the mouth of their platform as they watched Niall’s ascent. 

“Sir, I told you that I could bring over your drinks to your table!” the thirty-ish year old gasped between heavy inhales. 

Harry stepped forwards and took the slipping mugs from Niall’s grip. Louis dumbly watched the stretch of Harry’s legs and felt as useless as the bartender. 

“And I told you not to worry ‘bout it,” Niall good naturedly guffawed. Without much grace, he plopped the pitcher down on the table and the foaming liquid splashed over the lip. The bartender barely concealed a flinch at the mess. Niall wiped his hands down the front of his jeans and grinned, “See? No worries, mate.” 

“Ah,” the bartender shoved out a laugh, eyes still on the spill, “yes, no worries, Sir.” 

“Alright?” Niall then addressed Harry and Louis before slipping into the booth. 

Louis nodded and followed suit. “Alright. Where’s Liam?”

Niall nonchalantly waved towards the rest of the bar. “Think I saw him headed towards the toilets when I got here.” 

Harry slid in after Louis and without a second thought, rested both of his arms along the top. Louis’ neck snapped in the direction of the offending hand that rested behind his head. The pads of Harry’s fingers lightly tapped the the cushion in a rhythm that didn’t even vaguely resemble what was playing in the bar. 

“Do you mind?” Louis obnoxiously asked with a pointed look at Harry’s close proximity.

“No.” Harry slightly tilted his head and bluntly asked, “Do you?” 

Louis felt blood rush to his head and his sight slightly blurred. 

“So!” Niall brightly shouted, clearly seeing the vein in Louis’ neck protrude. He shoved two glasses towards Harry and Louis. “They got a new Pilsner in last week. Sounded alright enough.” 

Harry lowered the hand that wasn’t behind Louis’ neck and nudged the glass away with two knuckles. “I don’t drink.” 

Niall’s eyes widened while he quickly pulled the offending mug away with a wince. “Shit, sorry, mate. I didn’t know or we wouldn't have come...well...to a bar.”

“No worries,” Harry calmly shrugged. 

Louis steepled his hands on the table and not unkindly asked Harry, “Is that part of the whole ‘temple’ business?”

Harry blinked. “My business is the shop.” 

_ Fucking idiot.  _

“I know that, Styles,” Louis forced himself to calmly say. “I meant, is not drinking part of the ‘your body is a temple’ thing?” 

Niall was glaring at Louis, but Harry remarkably looked...touched? A ghost of a dimple briefly pressed into his cheek as he lucidly nodded. “You remembered?”

_ It wasn’t meant to be a compliment. _

Louis awkwardly cleared his throat, feeling uncomfortable that Harry thought he was actually being considerate with the remark. “Uh, yeah. Bit hard to forget that one.”

Harry slowly angled his body towards Louis. His left knee slightly knocked into Louis’ thigh and with the movement came a heady dose of fucking _Autumn Apple Cider_. Without meaning to, he inhaled the sweetness of the scent that was now associated purely with Harry. It was disorienting and Louis wanted to shove Harry out of the booth. 

Harry pulled his hand from behind Louis’ neck and crooked his elbow. He rested his head against his palm and Louis was briefly distracted by the precarious glimmer of three gold beads that were braided into the thick undercut of his hair. Louis felt himself slightly squirm underneath the attention and proximity. Any chance of having the upper hand was quickly swept away. 

“Do you drink?” 

The question caught Louis off guard enough to snap him out of his reverie. Louis scoffed with a bit more bite than necessary at the chosen phrasing and reached for the pitcher. Shockingly, his hand didn’t shake even though he felt as if Harry’s gaze was slowly setting him aflame. With faux-confidence, he glanced at Harry from the corner of his eye before filling a mug. Once the liquid touched the brim, he mock-toasted to Harry. “What do you think?” 

Harry silently watched as Louis emptied a third of the drink. When Louis sat the glass back down he raised his eyebrow at Harry. There was something running through Harry’s mind in that moment and Louis was certain of it. He was being assessed, but he had no clue what it actually meant. With a nod, Harry swiftly slipped out of the booth and on to his feet. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t look at Louis or Niall. He just strode off of the platform, catching passing eyes with each stride. 

“Louis,” Niall groaned when Harry was out of their sightline.   

Louis numbly turned towards Niall, embarrassment painting his cheeks. He indignantly rolled his eyes because that was easier than feeling bad for Harry Styles. “I didn’t actually mean to make him leave!”  

“No point in lying to me, pal.” 

“I’m not lying!” 

“We all know you don’t want him here.” 

“That’s — ” Louis cut himself off with a sharp bite against his tongue because it was obvious that the words threatening to fall out were a brazen lie. 

Niall smugly grinned, but there was still lingering disappointment. 

Louis looked down at his hands before pointedly turning away. Relief flowered inside his chest at the sight of Liam stepping up the platform with a drink in hand. Liam took one look between the two of them and his smile dimmed. Sounding far too much like a father, he sighed, “What happened?”

Niall jutted his thumb towards Louis. “It’s his fault.”

“Oh, real nice, Niall.”

“He made Harry leave.”

Louis kicked his foot out towards Niall’s ankle. “I did not!”

Liam’s frown deepened and he looked over his shoulder before turning back towards Niall and Louis. He shook his head. “Harry didn’t leave, I just saw him at the bar.”

Niall smacked Louis’ shoulder. “Now look at what you’ve done!”

“Well, shit.” 

Louis snatched his glass and finished off the beer with urgency. 

_ Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck.  _

Liam sat next to Niall looking even more confused than before at his bandmates’ behavior. When neither of them elaborated, Liam sighed. “Let’s try this again. What happened?” 

“D’you wanna tell him?” Niall challenged with his arms folded over his chest.

Louis’ response died off somewhere in his throat because Harry was in the process of snaking his way back to their booth. Cradled between his mammoth hands was an oversized punch glass with sloshing peach colored liquid. Hanging over the rim were at least three differently decorated umbrellas and two slices of orange skewered by a miniature purple pirate sword. To top it off, there was an electric blue swirly straw that was pinched between Harry’s lips. Louis gaped at the drink and then at the man who somehow managed to find a cocktail that appeared to be even more absurd than he was. 

“Sorry, did you ransack a Hawaiian villa on your way back from the bar?” Louis incredulously asked, not bothering to wait long enough for Harry to even sit down. 

“Fucks sake,” Niall grunted under his breath. 

Harry didn’t say anything as he sat back in his previous seat and crossed one leg over the other. 

Louis let silence uncomfortably sit between them before talking. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

“I don’t.”

“Then what the hell is that?”

“Sex on the Beach.”

“But...you don’t drink.”

“Yup.” Harry’s tongue slightly darted out before he sucked on the straw. 

Louis was slightly distracted by the movement, but was pulled out of it from what Harry had said. He deeply inhaled through his nose and closed his eyes. Irritation swelled inside his bloodstream. When he opened his eyes again, Louis deadpanned, “You mean to tell me you got a virgin sex on the beach?”

The corner of Harry’s mouth quirked upwards around the straw. Louis shook his head and couldn’t help the laughter that coated his voice, making him sound nonthreatening for once. “What even are you?”

Tension seemed to ease around them and Louis couldn’t tell if Niall or Liam looked particularly grateful for it. Louis sat back with a newly filled glass and listened to the standard process of Liam asking Harry standard questions about playing guitar which led to Harry’s usual amount of horseshit. Each question was answered, but without much detailing and Louis was the only one remotely bothered by it. It was a dull annoyance that he figured would become a regular feeling over the following month. He decided to make a game of it, though. Everytime he wanted to roll his eyes at Harry’s general existence, he was rewarded with a sip.

_ “I taught myself.”  _

One sip.

_ “Started when I was four.”  _

Two sips.

_ “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”  _

Three sips.

_ “It just kind of happened.”  _

Four sips. 

_ “I don’t like the word ‘famous’.”  _

Five sips.

_ “The wind makes nice waves.”  _

Down your drink.

Once the hour mark of Louis’ game hit, it was pleasantly apparent that he was one step away from being impeccably inhiberated.  

Niall and Liam were just past the point of tipsy with their flushed cheeks, but it was clear they hadn’t been playing Louis’ game. He snorted to himself and took another gulp before angling his head to look at Harry. Louis’ hazy gaze drifted towards Harry’s mouth, vaguely noting it had gotten steadily pinker from sucking on his second mocktail. 

Niall pointed at the empty punch bowl in question. “Are you gonna get another one?”

Harry eyed the nonexistent beverage and almost longingly said, “I wanted to try a Pina Colada, but that’s a coconut instead of cranberry.”

Louis decided that would be the point to speak for the first time in almost a half hour. With a sloppily unimpressed shrug, he asked, “And?”

Niall and Liam looked at him as if they momentarily forgot he was there. Louis didn’t bother to contrort his face into a glare. It was far too much effort. He decidedly only looked at Harry. Harry, the fucking prince of the day, barely reacted at all. Of course. He simply looked at Louis with his usual level of mellowness. 

With an air of self-appointed wisdom, or maybe that was just Louis projecting, Harry said, “It’s bad business to mix drinks.”   

“It’s fucking juice, Harry. It doesn’t matter if you mix.” 

“Okay,” Harry shrugged and got up from his seat. He moved to leave their platform, but three young women chose that moment to approach the table. Their eyes darted between the four men and Louis vaguely recognized two of them. 

_ Great. Stalkers.  _

The girl on the left quickly stammered out, “Can we get a picture with you?” 

Louis opened his mouth to either shoo them away or take the picture, he hadn’t decided yet, but felt as if he was punched in the gut when the girl closest to Harry spoke. 

“You’re Harry, yeah? The new Zayn?”

Louis didn’t attempt a level of casualty as he forced himself to stagger to his feet. He clapped Harry on the shoulder with a bit of force and coldly laughed out, “The new Zayn, huh?” Louis leaned in closer to Harry and was vaguely aware that Liam and Niall stood from their seats. He paid them no mind as his grip slightly tightened on Harry and he hotly muttered into his ear, “You might not like the word  _ famous _ , but you’re gonna have to get over it, kid. That’s what you are now. Congratulations on your audition.” 

His vision slightly whited out when he stepped back. He scrubbed a hand over his face and didn’t dare to look at Harry’s expression before shoving off to the bar for something stronger.  

✵

Louis wasn’t a dramatic person. The was a trait left to Jules and Jules alone. That said, Louis was certain that the following morning found him on the brink of death. 

The alarm from his mobile felt as if it was tossing playing darts directly into his skull. His tongue was heavy and dry in his mouth. When he wrinkled his nose, something unpleasantly sharp and sick filled his senses. It wasn’t until he kicked his feet out towards the end of his mattress that he realised he had no recollection of getting home. 

“Shit,” Louis groaned and pushed his face further into his pillow. His voice sounded as if it was scrubbed against a cheese grater. His hand pathetically and blindly swatted against his mobile until it finally stopped screaming at him to get his arse out of bed. He forced himself to roll over and his stomach unpleasantly turned with the movement. 

When he eventually forced himself to open his eyes, he noticed something in his periphery that was disturbingly familiar. 

_ Oh god, no.  _

Louis stared at Harry’s personalized stationary, but couldn’t bring himself to move to read whatever Harry had written on it. His pulse steadily quickened at the understanding that Harry had been in his flat. Harry had been in his flat when Louis was completely fucked out of his mind from booze. Harry took him home. 

_ Fuck.  _

Louis reached for the slip of stationary and noticed a glass of water and a bottle of paracetamol was also left on his bedside table. He ignored the throb of his migraine and held Harry’s note in his hand. If Louis wasn’t on the brink of throwing up before, he certainly was now. 

It was an assorted list of ingredients and their measurements. Louis frowned at the words until it dawned on him that it was a homemade remedy for a hangover. Louis’ skin went clammy when he finally read the one choppy sentence that was scribbled at the end of the list. 

_ “From my younger years.” _

His hands violently shook as he reread the demeaning sentence. It read as if Harry was a full-fledged human and Louis was a toddler that had gotten his first cold.  _ His younger years? _ It was degrading. It was backhanded and Louis prayed that Liam and Niall weren’t there when Harry wrote it. Heat filled his cheeks. He was sure that Liam and Niall were there. How else would Harry know where he lived? 

Louis dropped the letter to his duvet and covered his face with his hands. He tried to regulate his breathing, but there was little that could be done to silence the turmoil spewing inside his head. A second alarm from his mobile rang ten minutes later. Louis would have to face Harry again in just an hour. The thought caused his hands to tremble and his breath to shorten. He fell back flat against his bed and couldn’t help but have a new appreciation for Jules’ mourning ritual. A Bloody Mary and depressing soundtrack music seemed more fitting than facing what awaited him at the studio. 


	3. A Pinch of Nutmeg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mixtape for chapter three: Thunderstruck by AC/DC, Story of My Life by Social Distortion, Here Comes Your Man by Pixies, Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix, That’s The Way by Led Zeppelin, Rocket Man by Elton John, No Sleep Till Brooklyn by Beastie Boys, Enter Sandman by Metallica, Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses, Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes, Have You Ever Seen the Rain? by Joan Jett, One of These Days by Pink Floyd

When Louis stepped into the studio at precisely eleven that morning, he found himself staring at two identical expressions, each embodying every drunk’s nightmare. It was an even mix of apprehension and sympathy in the form of wrinkles between eyebrows, lame attempts of comforting smiles, and rigid posture. Louis resolutely kept his sunglasses on and walked to his usual seat. He sank down in the chair and widened the stance of his legs. It was a useless tactic of appearing far more okay with the situation than he truly was. 

“Mornin’,” Liam carefully greeted.  

Niall leaned forward to rest his elbows on the tops of his thighs. He knocked his hand against the cap of Louis’ knee and lightly asked, “How’re you feeling?”

“Peachy.”

Niall grimaced at his dull response and pulled away. 

“Sorry,” Louis apologized, immediately feeling like a dick. He deliberately tapped the side of his sunglasses. “I haven’t been this hungover in ages and it’s kicking my arse.”

Niall naturally grinned at that. He resumed his relaxed posture and huffed a laugh. “Happens to the best of us.” 

Just as Louis was on the brink of feeling better, Harry decided to ruin his life a bit more by walking into the studio. Any possibility of peace was effectively eliminated. Louis took advantage of his gaze being shielded by his aviators to give Harry an unapologetic lookover. He moved to stand to the left of the sofa claimed by Liam. Cupped between his hands was a faded silver thermos. Faux-hide trousers the color of wheat were secured along the slim of his waist by a black belt adorned with an oval buckle. Louis’ gaze followed the slight flaring of the hems before climbing back up to the matching jacket which had loose fringe over the chest and sleeves. Underneath the vintage jacket was a red threadbare Blondie shirt that had seen more summers than Louis himself. His attention briefly passed over the tattered strip of paisley fabric that pushed Harry’s hair away from his forehead before he finally forced himself to look at the miniscule tilt of Harry’s mouth. 

“Did you try the smoothie?” 

Louis’ jaw clenched at the nonchalance that pillowed Harry’s question. Something close to shame gathered underneath the surface of his skin. Carefully, Louis pushed his sunglasses to rest atop his head and he fixed his expression to pure boredom. He sighed with intent before speaking as if it was the world’s most exhausting task. Perhaps it was.

“No, Harry. I didn’t exactly have time to go and collect  _ a pinch of nutmeg  _ this morning.” 

Harry nodded in perfect understanding and thumbed over the lid of his thermos. Louis’ fingernails pierced the armrests of his chair at the lack of response. 

“What smoothie?” Niall asked after a fraction of silence. 

_ Huh? _

Louis frowned and briefly hesitated before saying, “The one in Harry’s note?” 

“What note?” Liam piped in, looking just as confused as Niall. 

Louis could feel paranoia painstakingly drain every hint of color from his face. His skin was waxy and his heart worked overtime to keep blood pumping through his body. He repeatedly looked between Liam and Niall. When it was clear that their expressions weren’t changing, Louis shakily exhaled. Of course, his nightmares only worsened when he glimpsed at Harry. The most infuriatingly confrontational shell of a human was resolutely staring at the floor with his hands clasped behind his back. 

“Lads,” Louis lowly began, sounding predatory to his own ears, “how  _ exactly _ did I get home?”

Niall appeared legitimately concerned. “You...don’t remember?” 

Louis’ annoyance must have been palpable at that point because Liam quickly cut in before he could start yelling. He looked impeccably guilty when he finally admitted, “Uh, we lost you around ten. We, um, couldn’t find you and...sorta figured you just left, mate.”

“You do that more times than not,” Niall defensively tacked on. 

“Yeah, I know,” Louis weakly agreed, knowing that he had a knack for Irish Goodbyes. “So,” he quietly started, steadily looking between Niall and Liam, “neither of you took me home?” 

Both men gently shook their heads. 

_ Liam and Niall didn’t take me home which means...  _

_ Well, shit. _

Louis nodded to himself, trying to stay calm at the information that Harry took him home. Not just that, Harry was the  _ only  _ one to take him home. Harry was alone with him inside his own flat and he had no recollection of it. His tongue weighed heavily in his mouth with a million questions. Almost defeatedly, Louis turned towards Harry. 

Harry was looking back at Louis this time. Whatever hesitance or shame Harry had felt was swept away with the passing moments. Louis needed to know what made Harry feel as if he had the right to intrude. A flurry of noise filled the small space as Jules strutted into the room with Martin trailing on her Gucci heels, but Louis couldn’t look away from Harry. He felt bare. Vulnerable. He hated it. Felt sick with it. 

“Bonjour, my candied antelopes from the Serengeti of sweet music,” Jules dreamily greeted the room with a swish of her hips. She placed one hand under her chin and rested the other by her side, looking slightly doll-like. She paused before serenely asking, “How are we blossoming on this morning?” 

Niall and Liam entertained her enough with legitimate responses. Jules fawned over them, giving Martin a chance to unsubtly wipe beaded sweat from his hairline before placing a pitcher of what looked suspiciously like mojitos on the round table. Head producer, Jeff Bhasker, and his engineering associates, Alex Salibian and Tyler Johnson, were next to enter the studio. Jeff was the kind of man who looked like he belonged on the cover of a hiker’s digest magazine. His olive skin had permanent smile marks, although some were covered by the impressive beard he had been growing for the past few years. Alex was less exuberant in personality compared to Jeff, but that would be needed after tension filled hours in a studio. During their first meeting that discussed the recording of Wolves’ second album, Louis vaguely thought Alex resembled the Gyllenhaals. Then there was Tyler, a man who looked more like a teddy bear than anything else. He was an engineer on Ed Sheeran’s album  _ Multiply _ and Elle king’s album  _ Love Stuff _ . Those credentials alone was the only reassurance Louis needed. 

Louis, as well as the rest of the band, trusted these three men over any other production crew to ensure Wolves would put out a successful album. 

It was rather unfortunate that their first day was soiled by a growing headache. Louis felt as if he was one inhale away from hyperventilation. He couldn’t force his brain to cooperate with the rest of his body. Harry was quiet as well, but that wasn’t anything remotely new. Jeff made his way over to Louis and pulled him in for a quick hug. Louis went rigidly, but made sure to slip a smile over his face so he didn’t look like a complete knob. 

“Good to see you again,” Jeff said when they seperated. His long, wavy hair was a close contender to Harry’s own length. Louis shook the idea from his head, already too preoccupied with thoughts of Harry Styles. He didn’t need to add another topic to the list. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis clapped his hands together in front of his chest, “been looking forward to getting in here with you guys.”

Jeff beamed and angled his body towards Harry. “And you must be the guitarist Jules’ has been raving about.” 

Harry didn’t shy away from the compliment, but he didn’t bask in it either. He stepped forwards and extended a hand in the same fashion as when he first met Louis. It was apparent that Harry didn’t have a single care that he was meeting one of the top producers in the game.  _ Bastard probably doesn’t even know.  _

“Harry Styles,” he politely introduced himself. 

Jeff shook his hand and Louis could practically see the wheels in his head turn as he took in Harry’s appearance. His response came a bit slower, probably mentally tripping over the ideas. “Jeff Bhasker.” 

Louis felt out of place between the two men, which was ridiculous given that it was  _ his  _ band. Harry hadn’t even been offered a permanent position in the band and apparently Louis was the only one who remembered this. A barrage of images of having to live in close quarters with Harry during a tour torpedoed into his brain. It was day one of recording and he was already on a speedway towards a meltdown.  

Jeff slipped his hands into his pockets and leisurely shifted his weight from side to side. He jutted his chin upwards. “Who’ve you worked with before?”

“My grandfather.” 

That was news to Louis. His brows pulled together and he quickly pressed, “Your grandad was in the music business? You didn’t mention that.”

Harry’s mouth turned downwards into a slight frown at Louis’ words. He shook his head. “No. He owned the shop.”

“What shop?” Jeff asked.

“My barber shop.”

“ _ Christ _ .” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. “He meant who have you worked with music wise. Not cutting hair.” 

Harry didn’t respond immediately. When he did, it was with a shrug and an off-handed, “He didn’t specify.” 

“Oh my god,” Louis embarrassingly rushed out as Jeff snorted a surprised laugh. 

“Guess I didn’t,” Jeff chuckled, looking far too endeared by Harry’s persona. 

Louis shot an apologetic grimace towards Jeff before stepping a foot closer towards Harry. He lowered his voice and gestured towards the hallway. “Can I have a word?” 

Harry nodded and followed him out. 

Louis led them down a long hall and stopped when he felt like they were far enough from the studio’s doorway. His fingers threaded together behind his head. Harry stopped a few feet away and leaned his left shoulder against the eggshell painted wall. Patience emanated from his being and it only frustrated Louis even more. Louis’ thumbs pressed into his neck and a dull ache formed underneath the touch. He dropped his hands and finally squared his stance towards Harry. 

“Do you have any idea who he is?” Louis frantically asked. He didn’t wait for Harry to open his mouth before pointing towards the direction of the studio. “He’s one the most successful producers right now and I’ve worked my arse off to work with someone like him. You can’t just talk to him like that. We  _ need _ him to want to be here.”

Harry thumbed at the hem of his jacket. His voice was vacant of any clear emotion when he asked, “Talk to him like what?” 

Louis’ eyes widened. “The tongue in cheek thing you do!” 

“I’m not cheeky.”

“Not the clever kind, anyways,” Louis muttered. He heavily slumped against the wall and looked at the overhead lights. He closed his eyes and asked a question that had been clawing at him. “Why did you even audition? You don’t like new music. You don’t seem to want to be here. So...why audition?” 

Harry didn’t miss a beat. “Niall needed help.”

Louis frowned. “You just met him.”

“So?”

_ So? _

“A stranger tells you he needs someone for his band and you just offer to help? That’s it. No questions asked?” 

“Yes.”

Louis opened his eyes and lolled his head to the right to look at Harry. The other man steadily met his gaze. Not meaning to sound like a dejected teenager, Louis pointed out, “I told you what happened with our guitarist, but you didn’t say you could play guitar.”

“I know.”

“Cheers,” Louis rolled his eyes and slunk to the floor. He bent his legs and rested his arms over his knees. 

“That’s the difference between you and Niall.”

Louis craned his neck to look at Harry. He felt his stomach clench in apprehension, but he had to know. He tried to seem unbothered when he asked, “What’d you mean?” 

Harry stood upright and passed the thermos from hand to hand. He shrugged. “You’re not nice.” 

_ You’re not nice.  _

Louis snapped his head downwards at the black and white statement. Harry might as well have kicked him. He shook his head, refusing to let the words soak too far into his conscience. Placing his hands on the tile floor, he pushed himself upright and crowded into Harry’s space. Harry didn’t flinch, but there was a flicker of something unpleasant in his eyes. Louis darkened his own gaze and made sure to clearly enunciate his next question. 

“If I’m not nice, why’d you bother to get me home?” 

Harry’s pink lips curled upwards, setting something loose inside of Louis’ stomach. He gently pushed the thermos into Louis’ hands and said, “Because I am nice.” Harry stepped around Louis and sauntered back towards the studio. He didn’t bother to turn around when he said, “Drink the smoothie. It’ll help the hangover. Maybe even your attitude.”

Louis’ jaw dropped as he stared at the thermos in his hand. 

Harry made Louis his hangover smoothie, likely knowing that Louis was too stubborn to do it himself. He did that because he was a better person than Louis was. 

_ Pathetic. Worthless. Cruel. Miserable. Callous. Empty. _

Louis wiped a palm over his face and listened to Harry’s retreating footsteps. Every echo pushed a new sense of seth-loathing into his head. He turned and saw Harry walk into the studio without a single look back. The thermos heavily weighed in his grip and he paused for a moment before unscrewing the top. Louis took a small sip of the liquid. 

_ Of course it fucking tastes good. Fucking nutmeg. Fucking Harry Styles.  _

“Bastard,” Louis huffed to himself. 

He took another minute to drink a bit more and attempt to come up with a new plan. Louis figured he had three options of action. He could keep acting the way he was, but that would only prove Harry’s sentiment to be true. Harry being right was something Louis couldn’t rationally handle. He could attempt to befriend Harry, but the idea of pretending to like his own noose made him want to vomit. The third option was to treat Harry as a coworker that he barely had to speak to. It was certainly the most appealing of the options. Limited contact. Limited annoyance. Limited Harry.

Twisting the cap on the thermos, Louis purposefully strode back to the studio. He tugged at the bottom of his white shirt and focused on the slight chaffing of his black jeans as he walked. A few cycles of mediated breaths cleared his system. He loosened his shoulders and entered the fighting ring. 

“There he is,” Niall brashly announced Louis’ arrival when he stepped inside. There was a hint of lignerging concern in his eyes, so Louis offered a reassuring grin. 

Louis was stronger than whatever mental shitstorm Harry brought with him and he would prove it. He clapped his hands together and sat on the arm of the couch. “Sorry ‘bout that. What’d I miss?” 

Liam gestured to the room as a whole. “I was telling them how we have ideas and pieces of lyrics sorted for about ten tracks so far.”  

Alex walked towards a mounted whiteboard on the far wall and uncapped a dry-erase marker. He paused with hand by the board, waiting for one of them to continue. 

Louis took the cue and began counting on his fingers, “Three mainstream singles, two ballads, two alternative anthems, one instrumental, and the other two...to be honest, I’m not sure what exactly they are yet.” 

Jeff laughed at that and bobbed his head in understanding. He leaned forwards and loosely rolled his fingers in the air. “The instrumental, is it for transition between songs or d’you want it to be its own sort of entity?” 

“It’s own entity,” Louis confidently stated. Liam comfortingly patted his leg and Louis slightly flushed under the attention. Liam and Niall knew exactly what the song meant to him. It began as a melody, haunting him in the months that followed his mother’s passing. Towards the end of their tour, it grew into something hopeful. After trying to put words to the embodied emotions, the three of them agreed it was better off without distraction. 

“Anyways,” Louis broke the grim silence that had fallen, “where should we start?” 

“Show us what you’ve got for the instrumental and we can go from there,” Jeff kindly instructed and relaxed into his seat.

Alex lightly tapped the whiteboard. “Does it have a name?”

Louis nodded. “Johannah.”

The passing of his mother was public knowledge and judging by the sympathetic looks from Jeff, Alex, and Tyler, Louis could tell that they knew. He purposefully didn’t look at Harry for a reaction. 

While Jules poured mojitos, Louis, Niall, and Liam, pulled out their individual songbooks. The four musicians walked into the booth and dispersed to respective corners. Louis seated himself at the keyboard, put on a thick set of headphones, and warmed his fingers up along the keys. He saw rather than heard Niall quietly speaking with Harry as they shrugged on their guitars. Niall pointed at one of the pages in his book and Louis figured he was briefing Harry with what they had envisioned. Liam forgoed his usual drumset and stood above the electronic drum kit. The four of them ran separate scales and riffs before hearing Jeff’s voice through the headsets. 

“Whenever you’re ready, guys.” 

Louis’ fingertips poised over the keyboard and his eyelids drooped. Through his headphones, he heard a quiet pulse of a heartbeat. It was labored and all-consuming. After a count of four, he played a G-sharp minor and felt everything begin to disappear around him. The movement of the piece was made to mimic a dying heart transforming into a bodiless soul. Rebirth. Rejuvenation. Everything that Louis wasn’t even positive that he believed in.

Liam’s steady rhythm faded and Louis could feel his throat constrict in time with it. A heavy pause flooded the space before Louis and Harry swelled into the progression together. Louis sharply inhaled and blinked open his eyes. Harry’s gaze was locked on Louis’ fingers, concentration causing his lips to pucker as he kept their pace. Louis finally exhaled once Niall and Liam poured back into the final movement of the song. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something beautiful. 

“Well, shit, boys,” Jeff’s voice clucked through the intercom, effectively shaking Louis from his headspace. He turned towards the window to see the three producers grinning at them. Jeff leaned in to the the mic. “You’re gonna make my job very easy, aren’t you?”

Louis breathlessly laughed and pushed his hair back in relief. Tension that had wound his body was finally cut. Judging by the looks on Niall and Liam’s faces, they were in a similar boat. Sticking to the plan he had made in the hallway, Louis avoided meeting Harry’s eyes. The rest of the session was spent rerunning “Johannah” and the band pencilling in suggestions from the producers. Jules’ words of affirmation filtered from the background, making all of them break into fond expressions from time to time. Overall, when he pushed himself to forget his conversation with Harry, Louis could count the first day as a success.  

✵

The second day of recording was an entirely different story. 

Louis had started his day off in better spirits. He managed to get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep for the first time in what felt like years, went for a three mile jog where he spent minimal time imagining Harry’s demise, and even allotted enough time to eat a hearty breakfast. It was a rare morning where his hair cooperated and allowed Louis to style it with ease. He had even made it to the studio ten minutes early with coffee in hand and didn’t even scoff at Harry’s knitted poncho. It was  _ meant _ to be a good day.

Three hours into their session, Louis was at the end of his metaphorical rope with Harry and the peace treaty he signed in his head was sufficiently burned. 

“What is there not to get?!” Louis shrilly asked. 

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and stupidly shrugged. 

“For the love of god,” Louis groaned and pressed his palms to his face. 

“Let’s try a different tactic, shall we?” Liam bravely chimed in. He pasted on a grin and held a hand out towards Harry. “What do you think should change about the song?” 

Harry unabashedly said, “The lyrics.”

“Fucks sake,” Louis bitterly huffed. 

Niall threw a water bottle at him. “Let him speak, Caesar.” 

Louis threw the water bottle right back and yelped out, “Are you calling me a bloody dictator?” 

“Yeah,” Niall laughed. He stretched one arm over the other and sighed, “You were saying, Harry?” 

“That’s it,” Harry easily said. 

Liam’s mouth twitched in an almost hysteric grin. “Can you be more specific, please?” 

“Yes,” Harry nodded. “Why would you wake up with a loaded gun?” 

Louis slumped forwards with his head in his hands. Niall, on the other hand, thought Harry’s apparent innocence to be hilarious. Even Liam was giggling like a schoolboy in church at the way Harry took everything very literally. 

“Um,” Niall had to pause to release another spout of laughter, “it’s not a literal gun, mate.”

Harry didn’t say anything, but he was clearly waiting for an explanation. Never in Louis’ adult life did he think he would have to explain morning wood to another grown male. Laughter rumbled from the producers in the studio and Niall was just as useless at staying serious. It only got worse when Liam resigned with a sigh and went over to Harry. He turned his back and spoke so quietly that Louis couldn’t do anything but watch the way Harry’s cheeks progressively turned from pale to crimson. The cherry on top was the awkward hand gesture Liam did by his waist.

“Okay, I get it,” Harry rushed out with an unnatural speed. Louis couldn’t help but to internally gloat at his blatant discomfort.

_ So it takes singing about boners to make him crack. Louis can work with that. _

“Are we on the same page now?” Louis smirked. 

Harry stiffly nodded and fidgeted with the neck of his guitar. 

They went through “No Control” four more times before Jeff broke them apart to perfect the vocals. Louis watched Harry shuffle out of the booth and found that the equilibrium of his world was reinstated. Another hour passed and Louis belatedly realized the rest of the band had left. He didn’t mind because by the end of the day, they had a final cut of the song.

_ That’s what happens when you put effort into something. _

With one hand shoved into the pocket of his jacket and the other delicately pinching a lit cigarette, Louis walked across the lot towards his car. He paused on an inhale and slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke at the sight of Harry waiting by his truck. Harry straddled a gold motorcycle, his posture relaxed as if he had been waiting for a good bit of time. The sympathetic side of Louis felt bad for keeping him waiting. However, Louis also felt that Harry was an idiot for waiting in the first place. On top of that, Louis that pathetically aware that he would never forget the image of Harry stradling a piece of machinery.

It was a lot to digest for one man. 

When Harry noticed Louis’ approach, he hopped off of the bike and without casualty, eyed the cigarette in Louis’ hand. Louis took a lengthy drag. 

“Alright?” Louis carefully asked when his pace slowed to a stop. 

Harry nodded and reached for the holding compartment on the back of his bike. He pulled out his notepad from his messenger bag and flipped to a page somewhere in the middle that had a bit of writing on it. His gaze flickered from the paper to Louis’ confounded expression. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

Curiosity overtook his urge to lie. He shook his head and looked at the notepad. “What’ve you got there?”

“Questions.” 

A startled guffaw shot from Louis’ mouth. Through the following spout of laughter, he barely managed to get out, “Jesus, you—you wrote them down?” Louis scoffed and thumbed his t-shirt. “Didn’t realize I should have dressed for a proper interview.”

“Don’t mock me,” Harry frowned. There wasn’t malice in his voice, but his tone was steely enough to snub opposition. He tapped his index finger against the pad. “I’m not good with words on my own. Writing things down helps.”

Louis snapped his mouth shut. He would have never admitted a personal fault to Harry, especially not one of that size. It was easy ammunition and Louis didn’t know how Harry would be okay admitting that to him of all people.  _ You’re not nice like Harry.  _ Harry, who was larger than life, had no issues with telling others that he had a difficult time expressing himself. Louis dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with the toe of his shoe. Harry’s words unpleasantly looped until an apology fell out on its own accord. He uncomfortably mumbled, “Sorry.”

Harry didn’t readily respond and when he did, his expression was deliberately empty. “May I continue?” 

He didn’t accept Louis’ apology, but he didn’t flat out leave Louis standing alone in the lot either. Louis almost wished that he did. It would have been warranted. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and minutely nodded. 

“Do you write all of the songs?”

Louis rested his back against the door of his car. He tilted his head from side to side. “Most of them, but not all of them.”

Harry hummed and looked back down at his notepad to read off the next question. “The other songs we’re recording, are they similar to ‘Johannah’ or ‘No Control’?”

“How'd you mean?”

Harry sat on the beaten leather seat of the vintage Ducati and crossed his legs. His hands splayed over the page, blocking Louis’ view from what he had written. Harry rolled his fingertips over the smooth surface before asking, “Do they have meaning like ‘Johannah’ or not?”

_ What in the fuck?  _

Louis’ nose wrinkled at the word choice. “Is this your very un-subtle way of saying you hate ‘No Control’?” 

“I don’t hate it,” Harry corrected. Before Louis could feel an ounce of pride, Harry mellowly dashed his ego by continuing to speak. “I’m saying there’s no heart in it. It’s crude.” 

_ Crude? _ In that moment Louis realized he had no idea how old Harry was. He was certainly not a teenager if his developed stature was anything to go by. His words on the other hand were painted by ignorance or innocence. Louis couldn’t know for sure. 

“How old are you?” Louis asked, keeping blatant judgement out of his voice as best as possible.

Harry raised an eyebrow in confusion at the change of topic, but still answered the question with a dull cadance. “Twenty-six.” 

_ Twenty-six is too old to be incredibly naive.  _

Harry returned the question, brazenly out of politeness instead of genuine curiosity. “How old are you?” 

“Twenty-eight,” Louis responded and watched Harry’s expression for any sense of surprise. Or, anything, really. When Harry only gave an indolent bob of his head, Louis carried on with their conversation. “Anyways, I’m not sure what rock you’ve been living under, but every song doesn’t have to have a heart.”  

“I disagree with you.” 

Louis instinctively clenched his teeth together at the statement. He mentally shook it off and sharply cut the air in front of him with his hands _. _ “Sometimes, oddly enough, they’re just songs. It doesn’t matter.”

Harry openly frowned and if Louis wasn’t already exasperated, he would have been pleased to have pulled such a range of emotions from the other man all in one day.  

“How can you say that?”

“What?”

“That it doesn’t matter.” Harry’s body sagged and disappointment rolled off of him in thick waves, crashing over Louis’ frame. He pinched his bottom lip and looked almost startled by his own reaction as words almost frantically poured out of him. “What’s the point of doing this if it doesn’t matter? If it means nothing? You’ve spent energy creating something to...what? Push it under the rug?” 

“Whoa, there,” Louis defensively held up his hands. Harry’s words caught him off guard with their slightly hysteric undertone. It was confusing. It was insulting. He narrowed his eyes and lowly told Harry, “That’s not what I was saying at all, so don’t shove your words in me mouth.” 

“Then what are you saying?”

“Every song doesn’t have to have some kind of  _ deeper  _ meaning.”

“Do you only sing about sex because it sells, then?” 

Louis almost choked on the crassness of Harry’s words. He pulled his carton of cigarettes from his pocket and muttered out, “ _ Jesus, Harry _ ,” before lighting a new fag.

“Do you?” Harry pushed.

“I don’t know?” Louis brashly waved his hands in the air. He took a pull from the filtered end and exhaled, “Maybe?”

“And you don’t think songs like ‘Johannah’ would sell?”

Louis’ face hardened, hating the sound of his mother’s name rolling so carelessly off of Harry’s tongue. He pointed it index and middle finger at Harry. “I didn’t come up with ‘Johannah’ just to sell it.”

“Why?” Harry pressed on. He stood upright and with an all-too calm demeanor asked, “Because it has too much heart?” 

“Fuck off,” Louis seriously gritted out. He started to walk around hood of his car, but paused to glower back at Harry. “Don’t talk about shit you don’t understand, Harry.” 

“I’d understand if you’d tell me.”

Louis scoffed under his breath, “Pass.”

“I think a song like ‘Johannah’ would sell if you wanted it to.” 

He closed his eyes and kept his back towards Harry. Louis felt like an exposed livewire that was one prod away from destroying everything around him. The soles of Harry’s shoes faintly clapped over the pavement. Louis’ fingers slightly shook as he brought the cigarette to his lips. When he opened his eyes, Harry was in front of him. There was earnestness in Harry’s voice when he spoke and Louis was shocked to hear it directed at him. 

“I think your music is better when your heart is in it.”

_ Your _ music. Not just music in general.  _ Your. Your. Your. _

Louis resolutely looked towards the direction of the building because Harry’s sincerity was something he couldn’t process. Especially when it touched too close to the reason for Louis’ defensiveness. His eyes quickly darted between Harry’s face and the nearly empty lot. “When’s the last time you heard an instrumental song on the radio?” 

“I don’t listen to the radio.”

Louis breathlessly laughed at that. “Figures.” 

“But,” Harry drawled out until Louis looked at him, “it doesn’t have to be instrumental. It can just  _ mean something _ to you.”

“You really want me to pour out my heart for the world, huh?”

Louis had been teasing, but Harry soberly nodded at the question. “Yes. Why not?” 

“Uh,” Louis nervously chuckled, “because it’s a bit terrifying?”

Harry’s lips pressed together and he looked down at the pavement. Louis could tell he was gathering his words instead of resolutely staying silent like normal.  _ I’m not good with words on my own.  _ He finished off his cigarette as he waited. 

“What genres of music inspire you?” 

Louis rested his hand on the hood and tapped his fingers over the heated metal as he thought. He thought about what he grew up listening to and what he listened to now. “A mix, really. Punk, rock, alternative, bit of pop, bit of blues.”  

To Louis’ confusion and mild horror, Harry wrote down Louis’ words. Without saying another word, Harry strode to his bike and pocketed the notepad. He grabbed a black helmet and pulled it over his head. Keeping the dimmed visor down, Harry knocked the kickstand back with his heel and brought the engine to life. The brash sound of the chugging motor filled the parking lot when Harry revved the throttle. Louis numbly watched Harry send him a semi-salute before peeling out of the space. 

Louis stared at the mouth of the lot for five minutes in disbelief before disjointedly making his limbs clamber into the car. His hands gripped the steering wheel and he watched his knuckles flex underneath the movement. Louis’ mind felt detached from his body as he turned the ignition on and drove home. 

Every thought obsessively revolved around Harry. Details of their conversation incessantly repeated and Louis couldn’t formulate a cohesive decision of what to make of any of it. Matters were made worse at the realization that not all of his feelings were negative. By the time he was home, Louis knew that he wanted to understand Harry. He didn’t want to hate him. He didn’t want to like him. He only wanted to understand. Unfortunately, Harry was the kind of man to ride off on a bloody motorcycle during a conversation, so Louis figured he may never have the chance. 

By sunset, Louis had washed the day away with a scalding shower and made himself chicken stir fry for dinner. He grabbed a plateful of food, bottled beer from the fridge, and climbed up the stairs towards his deck. Louis settled in his usual seat and tugged the hood of his Barcelona sweatshirt over his damp fringe. The sun painted the world in amber hues and Louis allowed himself a moment of peace. He watched as clouds slowly turned from rose to plum until they were almost nonexistent in the evening sky. Stars speckled around the waning moon and Louis sipped on his second beer.  

He shut his eyes and listened to the steady thrum of London life around him. Louis was nearly lulled to sleep until the usual clatter of car traffic was interrupted by the approaching purr of motorcycle. He didn’t think much of it until it got louder. And louder. And then slightly deafening as it he hovered just outside of his building. The neck of the beer bottle nearly slipped from his grip. Only when the engine kicked off did Louis put his drink down.

Louis angled his head towards the cracked open door and strained his ear. It took less than thirty seconds before he heard the faint sound of the intercom buzzer for the main door. 

_ Fuck. _

Louis didn’t have to ask who was at the front door when he pressed the intercom button, but the words seemed to stutter own on their own. “Um. Hello?”

_ “It’s Harry.”   _

Louis wanted to punch the wall because of fucking course Harry would show up on his doorstep without invitation or explanation. His index finger hesitated over the unlock key before pressing down. Through the intercom, he could hear the front door swing open. Louis looked down at his sweatshirt and joggers, feeling extremely unprepared to face Harry who was most likely dressed as if he was headed to play Woodstock. 

Ignoring his own insecurities, Louis walked downstairs towards the foyer door that acted as a second barrier. He could hear Harry shuffling on the other side of the wooden door. Louis padded over and unlocked the doorknob, then slipped the chain link lock from its place. He steadied himself with a breath and opened the door.

Louis’ hand limply fell to his side as Harry looked up from the tile floor. Harry carefully pushed a pair of square-frame glasses up higher on his nose from where they had slid down. Half of his hair was messily gathered into a bun and the rest was draped over his right shoulder. He was dressed simpler than usual, but still kept his trademark flare with a tight Elton John ‘72 tour shirt tucked into a pair of bell-bottom blue jeans. Louis distantly thought that this was his favorite version of Harry yet. 

“What are you—” Loui cut himself off. He pushed his fringe off his forehead and stood back from the doorway. With a weak sweep of his hand towards the stairs, Louis sighed, “Wanna come up?”

If Harry was surprised by the relatively welcoming gesture, he didn’t show it. He nodded and walked right by Louis with his messenger bag hanging off his arm. Without waiting for Louis to lock the door, Harry started to climb the staircase.

“Go ahead, s’not like you haven’t been here before,” Louis couldn’t help but say as Harry led the way. When they were upstairs, Louis hovered by the kitchen. “Did you want anything to drink?”

Harry set his bag on the island and pulled out a stool. He set his hands in his lap and asked, “Tea?”

“Doubt I have any that’d be up to your standard,” Louis said, a smile tugging at his mouth. 

“I’m not picky.” 

Louis pointedly raised an eyebrow. A ghost of a dimple appeared by Harry’s mouth, but he didn’t say anything.

“Yorkshire it is, then,” Louis announced and started the kettle. He pulled two mugs from upper cabinets and dropped a teabag in each one. Folding his arms over his chest, he waited for the water to heat.  

“Honey?”

“Huh?” 

Harry lifted his hand in the direction of Louis’ cupboard while clarifying, “You said you liked honey in your tea.” 

_Shit, shit, shit._ Louis opened his mouth and then shut it. It was either tell Harry the truth that he really is an arsehole or be forced to drink shit honey tea for the duration of recording. He let out an awkward laugh. “Funny thing, that...” 

“I knew it,” Harry stated.

“Knew what?” Louis quickly shot back, his voice sounding slightly higher than normal. 

“That you lied,” Harry bluntly said and he didn’t even sound angry. He laced his fingers together and settled them on the countertop. 

Blood rushed to his cheeks faster than a blink at Harry’s words. His eyes widened and his lips noticeably parted in surprise. Words died in his throat. The kettle whistled, but Louis felt stunned in place.

Harry jutted his chin towards the kettle. “Tea.”

Louis’ hands slightly shook as he filled the two cups. Harry was silent behind him which only set Louis more on edge. He put cream in his mug and furiously blushed as he pulled honey from the cupboard and only added it to Harry’s mug. Louis passed Harry his drink and then awkwardly shifted his weight from foot to foot. 

Before he could think better of it, Louis asked, “Why didn’t you call me out on it?”

“It seemed important to you to for some reason.” 

Louis bit the tip of his tongue and tightly nodded. He pressed his left foot onto the right one and tried to sort through Harry’s words. Eventually, he settled on asking, “What’re you even doing here, Harry?” 

“Oh,” Harry airily exclaimed as if he had forgotten himself. He reached inside his bag and pulled out a yellow Walkman and cassette tape. Harry held both out to Louis. “I made you a mixtape.”

Louis nearly spit out his tea, but managed to force himself to swallow. He pointed at the outdated electronic and repeated Harry’s words, “You made me a mixtape.”

“I did.”

“But, you...what?” Louis stuttered out as he wearily took the items from Harry’s hands. He frantically searched Harry’s face for an answer. “What’d you do that for?”

“To inspire you to put out music that really means something to you.” 

The openness of Harry’s expression was the equivalent of looking straight into light. Purer and better than Louis deserved. He thumbed over the worn buttons. Louis didn’t meet Harry’s eyes when he quietly said, “I’ve been awful to you.”  

“You have,” Harry steadily agreed. 

“But...you still did this for me.” 

Harry took a long sip from his mug and didn’t say anything. Louis looked up when he heard the sound of the stool scraping against the floorboards. Harry silently finished what remained of his tea, placed it on the island, and shrugged his bag over his shoulder. He watched Harry walk to the stairs and then disappear out of sight. Louis put the Walkman and tape down before darting towards the top of the stairs. Harry was almost at the last step.  

Louis put one hand on the wall and called down, “Harry?” 

Harry paused between steps and looked up over his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” Louis earnestly said. He cleared his throat and nervously added, “For the tape, and, um, getting me home the other night.” 

It was slow and a tad unsure, but Louis felt his breath leave his chest in a  _ whoosh _ when Harry toothily smiled back at him. Two dimples dipped into his cheeks and the skin by his eyes crinkled. The tip of his nose somewhat scrunched before going back down as if it was an accidental reflex. His expression somewhat dimmed and then Harry was nodding and continuing down the final step. Louis watched the door close behind Harry and felt something close to loss being dredged to his emotions’ surface. 

After convincing himself that the Walkman wasn’t going to sporadically combust into flames, Louis snatched the player, tape, his headphones, and went to the deck. Louis felt too anxious to sit, but the idea of pacing for the following hour was less than desirable. He pulled a blanket over his lap, lit a cigarette, and spent another minute listlessly rotating the clear cassette case between his fingertips. Steeling himself with a drag, Louis turned to the backside of the tape and read the tracklist. 

**_Side One_ **

  1. Thunderstruck - AC/DC
  2. Story of My Life - Social Distortion
  3. Here Comes Your Man - Pixies
  4. Little Wing - Jimi Hendrix
  5. That’s The Way - Led Zeppelin 
  6. Rocket Man - Elton John



**_Side Two_ **

  1. No Sleep Till Brooklyn - Beastie Boys
  2. Enter Sandman - Metallica
  3. Paradise City - Guns N’ Roses
  4. Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
  5. Have You Ever Seen the Rain? (Cover) - Joan Jett
  6. One of These Days - Pink Floyd



Louis opened the case and carefully pulled out the grey cassette. In the description label, Harry wrote, “Something Meaningful.” Time slowed down as he lightly traced the pad of his thumb over the inscription. He could hear Harry’s honey-like voice saying the words in his head as soft as a lullaby. Louis slid the cassette into the player and felt the corner of his mouth raise at the legendary opening of “Thunderstruck”.

Images of Harry hunched over in an a cramped study filled Louis’ imagination. The room held towers of vinyls and racks of tapes, thousands of names circling him in a vintage cocoon. While it was crowded, nothing would be dusty or forgotten. No, Harry was the type of person to frequently visit each stack with reverence in his spare time. 

Louis pictured the color of Harry’s eyes somewhat darkening with concentration as he timely recorded each song. Did they brighten when he finished taping “That’s The Way” and completed the process? Did Harry rush over to Louis’ place the moment he finished? Did Harry make his own copy so he could look back on this day years from now? Each song was specifically chosen based on their brief, yet heated, conversation. Would Harry  _ want _ to remember that?

_ No, he wouldn’t.  _

When the first side ended, Louis quickly flipped the tape over and pressed play. A sharp cackle startled itself from his body after just two lines of “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” because while the mix between punk-rock and hip-hop was definitely up Louis’ alley, he couldn’t picture Harry listening to it in his spare time. He imagined a slightly disappointed twitch of Harry’s mouth at the Beastie Boys shouting,  _ “autograph pictures and classy hoes” _ on the track. It just went to show that this tape really was  _ his _ . Louis had to give it to Harry, there was something entirely consuming about listening to a tape specifically made for one person. 

His laughter quieted while he continued to listen through. Louis tried to pick out what in particular Harry wanted him to pay attention to in the individual songs. By the time “One Of These Days” began, Louis felt as if he had been transported through nearly every range of emotions. 

However, it was when the pace of the final song picked up that Louis felt like he was experiencing something truly monumental. Two bass guitars carried the movement of the song in repetitive echoes before being layered by drums and finally a gutteral snarl of a slide along an electric guitar. He felt his pulse quicken as endorphins released themselves in quick flashes. The predominantly instrumental song was broken by a slurred out line:  _ One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces _ .

He hadn’t meant to jump from his seat, but the next thing Louis knew, he was dashing inside with Pink Floyd still thrumming inside his earbuds. His heart hammered beneath his ribs, aligning itself with the vivacious song. Louis grabbed a journal that had staff marks already printed on the page and stormed to his kitchen. Once he was sat at the island in the seat previously occupied by Harry, he began scribbling down nonsensical patterns. He jotted down whatever came to mind and for the first time in years, allowed himself not to overthink. When the song ended, the end of the magnetic tape  _ clicked _ , and he jammed his thumb into the rewind button and listened through the final song another time. And another time.

Louis worked until the moon slowly crept down towards the horizon and was replaced with the blazing kiss of sunrise. His eyes stung from lack of sleep, but he couldn’t tear himself away from the pages for longer than the periodic trip to brew more coffee. He didn’t fully comprehended that he stayed up the entire night until his alarm shattered the tailend of a melody he had created in his own head. With a dazed look, he blinked at the flashing screen of his mobile which was telling him it was time to get ready for recording. He looked at the stacks of papers that were messily scattered over the countertop and had a delirious urge to laugh. 

Every inch of him was jittery by the time he had stuffed the sheet music into his backpack and headed towards the studio. Louis belatedly realized he hadn’t showered which meant he was still in the clothes Harry last saw him in. In a half-arsed attempt to cover his lack of hygiene, Louis pulled a knit beanie from his car’s glovebox and shoved it over his hair. 

When Louis walked into the studio, he wasn’t entirely surprised to see he was the first there. He walked straight into the booth and dropped his bag by the keyboard. Putting on a set of headphones, Louis continued what he had started the evening before. His fingers tripped over themselves at the beginning, far too eager to produce even just a bar of what he had written. After a few needed calming breaths, Louis poured over the keys and steadily laid down the first verse. 

_ “Christ, you look fuckin’ awful, mate. Did you sleep here?”  _

Louis’ fingers slipped from the keyboard with a laugh at Niall’s unapologetic arrival. He turned towards the window of the booth and felt his smile fall. Warmth spread over his neck at the sight of the entire team watching him. Trying to gain some confidence, Louis stood from the bench and teased, “Nice of you to finally join me, lazy arses.”

He entered the mixing booth and pointedly flipped Niall off. “And no, I didn’t sleep here.”

Niall hummed and blatantly looked over Louis’ disheveled appearance. “I don’t think I’ve seen you dress like this since uni.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis dragged out while his eyes darted towards Harry’s presence on the couch, “I didn’t get much sleep.” He looked back at Niall and shrugged. “I was writing.”  

Louis couldn’t help but to sneak another glance in Harry’s direction. The other man was looking at him without any hint of smugness, but there was something in his eyes that emanated pride. Sucking in a breath, Louis went to the whiteboard and uncapped the marker. 

“I want three instrumentals on the album,” Louis quickly said. 

“Three?” Liam repeated, eyes wide. 

It was a fair reaction given that their first album heavily relied on vocals rather than the instruments themselves. 

“Yeah,” Louis nodded. He drew a bell-curve on the board and drew an X at the beginning, middle, and end. He looked at the drawing as he spoke. “What if we do a concept album instead of twelve independent songs?”  

When no one readily spoke, Louis turned around to gauge the group’s response. Niall and Liam looked confused. Jeff was relatively hesitant. Alex and Tyler appeared neutral. Harry was the only one who looked genuinely happy at the idea. 

“I’m not saying no,” Jeff carefully started off, “but what’s the concept?”  

“Birth,” Louis tapped the first X. “Life,” he tapped the second X. He hesitated before tapping the third X and saying, “Death.” He wrote “Johannah” underneath the third X and then drew an arrow to loop it back towards the beginning. Louis rocked back on his heels and clarified, “Rebirth.”

“Life’s timeline,” Harry said, his lower register sounding like the rumble of far off thunder.

Louis pinched his bottom lip between his teeth and nodded. He nervously looked to Liam and Niall for a response. 

Niall looked from Louis’ face, to the board, then back again. He slunk back in his seat and widened the stance of his legs. With a mischievous grin, Niall said, “If you think I’m gonna say no to more instrumentals where I finally get a chance to show off a bit, you’re fuckin’ mad.”

Louis barked out a laugh and the rest of the room seemed to gain momentum with it. He playfully tilted his head from side to side. “I think we can work something out. What do you think about the concept?”

“Well, I dunno how you plan on goin’ about all that whole,” Niall made hair quotes and lowered his voice, “‘ _ life timeline _ ’ business, but I’m up to try it.”

Louis could feel his cheeks slightly ache from the grin that remained on his face. He hopefully looked to their drummer. “Payno, up for it?”

Liam, the goddamn saint, didn’t falter. He slightly rubbed his palms together and chirped, “Up for it, mate.”

Louis looked at Harry and cocked his hip to the right. “Harold, you up for it?”

Harry nodded and met Louis’ gaze straight on. “I’m up for it.”

Jeff stood from his seat and propped his chin on his hand. He stared at the whiteboard and hummed something under his breath. Louis stepped towards the side and patiently waited as Jeff paced the floor of the booth. When he finally spoke, his tone was worlds lighter with a sort of giddiness that Louis had been feeling since the previous night. 

“Do you have an idea for the recurring melody?”

Louis swiftly nodded. “I’ve written some down, but it’s not fully developed, yet.

“Okay,” Jeff nodded. He carefully looked between the band members. “You all do realize this means we scrap everything so far except for ‘Johannah’.”

They all said, “Yes.”

“And you understand that with concept albums, there’s a greater risk of people tearing it apart and not liking it?” 

The four looked to each other and shared a silent look of agreement before nodding.

“Alright then,” Jeff clapped his hands together. He beamed and pointed towards the door of the booth. “Get in there and show me what we’re working with.”

As the other three went into the studio to warm up, Louis briefly stopped by Jeff’s side. He rested a hand on the Jeff’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “Thank you. I know this isn’t exactly what you signed up for.”

“Not exactly,” Jeff leaned his head to the side and then flashed Louis a quick wink, “but we’re gonna make sure it’s a good album.”

Louis nodded and murmured under his breath, “I really hope so.”

The following thirty minutes consisted of Louis walking Niall, Liam, and Harry, through the recurring melody he had envisioned appearing throughout the album. His bandmates were attentive as he played the bars on the keyboard. 

Harry’s fingertips danced over the neck of his guitar as Louis played, mirroring the swell of notes without strumming. Niall hummed a harmony two octaves lower and Liam had his eyes closed as he thrummed his hands over his thighs. The four of them workshopped together and Louis couldn’t help but notice the remarkable ease of their collaboration. They were a machine that would only operate smoothly each other’s contributions. They were meant to be together. 

✵

After three weeks of uninterrupted sessions, Wolves wrote, recorded, and finished their second album, “Fighting In The Battle Of Fools”.

Throughout recording, Jeff, Alex, and Tyler chimed in with their suggestions and every piece of advice felt revolutionary as they created. It was Tyler’s idea to use an analog synthesizer on their overture track “First Touch” in order to steadily distort the repetitive melody after each loop. 

“What’d you think?” Tyler asked after they listened to the playback of the track. 

Louis slowly paced with his arms folded over his chest. He hummed a few notes, changing every few beats, searching for something  _ more _ . 

“Could we get a choir?”

Louis stopped his ministrations and turned towards Harry. He slightly frowned. “A choir.” 

“Leading to the outro,” Harry slowly clarified with his usual drawl. “We need a choir.” 

A week after Harry’s suggestion, a gospel choir filled the studio and carried the outro to a higher plane of existence that Louis hadn’t even known existed. Louis stood by Harry’s side while they listened to the immaculate group. He looked up at the other man and silently admired the way a faint mist covered his moss green eyes. Louis wanted to reach out and delicately hold Harry’s hand in his own to comfort him. When his pinky slightly extended to do just that, Louis convinced himself to turn away. 

One week had passed since that moment and the band was listening to the final cut of the album. The producers gave them privacy through the round of twelve tracks and Louis was remarkably grateful.

He had been emotional through the recording of their first album, but it didn’t rival to the surge of tenderness he felt towards the second album. It was as if every thought and feeling Louis had come to know throughout his life was immortalized throughout the tracks. 

There were pieces of the other men, too. Liam’s gentle nature flourished in the second and third track. Innocent and juvenile in his ideals. Niall’s boisterous personality lifted the central arch with his heightened tone of unparalleled love for life. Then, the third portion mirrored the man Louis knew Harry to be. It was a contemplative attitude that came from a life of experience.

When “Johannah” was halfway through, Louis felt his throat become constricted. He tried to unsubtly clear it and stood  from his seat. With his hands behind his back, Louis slowly strolled around the room. The song that has been following him the past year was brought to fruition and he weakly thought that his mother would have been proud. Louis hadn’t realized he stopped by Harry’s side until the final heartbeat of the track finished. 

That time, Louis didn’t stop himself from silently reaching out and placing his hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry was sturdy underneath his touch and while it grounded Louis, it was swiftly followed by a feeling that was far too big for his body. It neared close to affection. Louis jerked his hand back and flexed his fingers as if to reprimand them for their weakness. Louis spun on his heel and walked back to his seat, but the sensation of Harry on his fingertips remained. It was too much. 

_ Something Meaningful. _


End file.
